ABSTRACT
In Chapters 3 and 11, particular emphasis was placed on the increasingly rapid growth of secondary and plan for it. Two attempts to achieve a more dispersed pattern of urbanization are reviewed in this Chapter by Charles Choguill. After an initial discussion of international experience concerning the development of small towns in the Third World, the author describes and compares the cases of Malaysia and Tanzania. Although they represent two very different economic and political systems, both countries have adopted positive strategies aimed at creating rural-based settlements through the building of new towns. Choguill demonstrates, however, that despite the considerable effort and cost of the programmes, and the undoubted benefits of improved services that they have provided, they have been less successful in creating real jobs and, therefore, in achieving significant reductions in rural-urban migration. This conclusion does not, however, auto-matically negate the benefits of dispersed urbanization as advocated by McRobie. But, as Choguill stresses, it reminds us how little we know of the dynamics of small-town growth impact.
The author is director of the Centre for Development Planning Studies at the University of Sheffield and Head of Department of Town and Regional Planning. He has carried out studies for the Asian Development Bank and other international agencies.
