Introduction

Inequality and uneven development are characteristics of contemporary society at all spatial scales ranging from the intra-urban to the international. Over the last three decades growing attention has been afforded to the global pattern of inequality and in particular to the marked differences in quality of life experienced by people in the First and Third Worlds (Figure 1.1). The imbalanced distribution of the world's resources is demonstrated by a range of social and economic indicators such as per capita income, GNP per head, literacy levels, per capita calorie intake and infant mortality rates. How ever it is measured, the gap between developed and underdeveloped, North and South, rich and poor, is a dominant feature of the geography of the modern world.