Question

What is urban bias as one of the key factors for rapid urbanization? Give an example and briefly provide a few viable recommendations to address the problems of urban bias.

Answer 1

Urban bias refers to situations when certain groups who reside in the urban areas are able to pressure the government to take certain decisions in their interest. These groups hamper economic development.These groups include students, political parties, labor unions,civil servants, manufacturers .It leads to overurbanisation. As a result of this, urban labour market get saturated,less opportunities in rural areas,public services get overburdened etc.

Poverty in the rural areas can be attributed to urban bias.Urban bias resulted in migration from rural to urban areas and rural areas remained poor.Infrastructural development has been more in urban areas because of urban bias .Natural resources are .more used in the industries in urban areas as there is less industrialization in rural areas. For eg African urban bias is similar to Latin American strartegy of replacing extensive rural production with import substitution at the expense of the poor which brought poverty to the rural people.Rural farmers depend on export market to sell their produce.So import substitution hurts the rural farmers. Recommendation maybe industrialisation in rural areas which will create job opportunities.Industrialisation will help to reduce poverty.