ABSTRACT

“Urban bias” implies greater inequalities in levels of living, not only between rural and urbanized regions, which is self-evident, but also in the social division of income. Masahiko Honjo, one of Japan’s premier urban planners, had successfully led the United Nations Center for Regional Development in Nagoya, Japan. Over the course of a decade he had helped to raise this modest research and training institute to a rank of worldwide renown. Urban bias has created a situation where more and more countries, once self-sufficient in food, are obliged to import large and growing amounts of staple foods to prevent or at least ameliorate mass starvation. For a little while, the end of growth efficiency may be served in this way; but in the longer term, the expected results are mass starvation, increased external dependency, economic and regional inequalities, urban discontent, and social revolution. Growth efficiency pre-empted both theory and policy advice.