Urban economy under rapid growth insustainability in rural-urban economic interaction: a lesson from Tanzania
Holm, M.
Development in the South issues and debates contributions by human and physical geographers: 165-184
1995
Document Number: 531199
Data presented are from a study conducted from 1990 to 1992 on rural-urban migration in two intermediate towns in Tanzania: Makambako town, Iringa Region, in the Southern part of Tanzania with 17 000 inhabitants located on a traffic junction linking the Central and the Southern Regions of Tanzania; and, Babati town, Arusha Region, with 16 000 inhabitants, located in a high productive farm area near Rift Valley as a centre for farm-non-farm marketing. Field work included interviews with a sample of migrant households and qualitative discussion with local authorities and business people. In the two towns investigates very few processing or manufacturing activities were observed among migrants' households, who often find themselves in an urban reproduction squeeze more severe that they had experienced in their rural home. The low standard of living is caused primarily by unsustainability of the urban economy, which is inadequate to absorb the population growth over the last 10 years. Under these circumstances, the intermediate towns are unable to procure sufficient resources to facilitate exploitation of local natural resources and accumulate capital for new investments.