Disadvantages and Advantages of Rural AreasEssay Preview: Disadvantages and Advantages of Rural AreasReport this essayThe challenge of delineating rural activities from urban ones has long interested geographers and economists though interestingly it has been recognized that attempts to make clear demarcation between the two create more confusions than they solve. Nevertheless, the rural- urban issue has been widely accepted as a continuum in which evident distinctions can be made between the two extremes but where there is increased blurring towards the middle. Hence economists and philosophers have generalized other areas as being predominantly rural and others urban. It is therefore, the aim of this essay to assess whether the concept of philosophers and economists that Malawi is predominantly rural is an advantage or a disadvantage.
Practicalities of Rural Areas: Geography of a Rural Area
If our goal was to delineate regions from the urban to the remote, we could always develop a tool which would include such dimensions.
A Tool for the Design and Evaluation of Rural Areas, A Framework System for the Evaluative Evaluation of Rural Areas [AITP] by Tukumang Ui is described below. In our view, AITP is an efficient method to assess regional characteristics such as geography and economic activity. It can be applied by the central authorities for different rural and rural-urban types such as:
Hindu states
Tunisia
Southwestern states
Central African Republic
Malawi
Vietnam
In my opinion, AITP is an effective instrument to evaluate regional features such as physical, mental, economic development.
Summary of AITP,
The purpose of this essay would be to provide an overview of the methodology used, and the specific criteria used. It also would be a useful framework for improving the understanding of rural economic development. It should also be viewed as a resource to be used more rigorously in the future in some areas where rural development is not being developed as envisaged by the Central Government. It is intended to provide information on technical aspects of the study of rural development while also to provide information on the current state of the region.
The purpose of the essay should be to draw distinctions between rural and urban and identify ways to create a harmonized relationship between them.
To do that we have to explain the basic principles and the different uses of this term. Before we begin this essay’s approach, I want to define the term rural so that it can be used as a descriptive term. Given that it is a term of special applicability to rural areas in Africa and other parts of the world, it is quite unnecessary to say in the first sections about it. We would like it to be understood in the first case in which Urban development is being done but this is also not an indication of rural development. Similarly the concept rural can mean rural and urban in that it uses more of the same terms and uses more of the same terminology.
Definition of “Urban” and “Rural”
Rural are defined by the International Coordination Board for the Study (IEC), which has also made the distinction between the two in its own report “Urban Development in the African States”. Urban development is defined as the construction, expansion, transformation or enhancement of a metropolitan area. Urban development means the building or the operation of a municipal, township, or regional government district as defined in the International Planning Guidance for Public Distribution of Information on Rural Development (IPPD-RDM-M2), which sets in relation to the objectives and practices of the United Nations. Urban economic development is defined as the formation and operation of a rural economy. Rural development means the building or the operation of a municipal, township, or regional government district as defined in the International Planning Guidance for Public Distribution of Information on Rural Development (IPPD-RDM-M2), whereby economic development is a process that takes place as a result of the direct and direct actions of rural and urban entities. Rural economic development is a process that takes place (and continues to take place) primarily as a result of direct actions of Rural and Urban entities and in
In the first place, being predominantly rural, Malawi remains the container of raw materials from which urbanized countries tap their resources. This stems from the background that most African countries have an agrarian economy. Even though they may not gain enough money out what they sell, developing countries are nonetheless involved in uplifting the economic status of urban centers, by supplying them with necessary resources (Abayo: 1999:45). In addition, a country primarily indulging in agriculture rarely faces a shortage and does not have to rely on imported sources for food production. With agriculture they can be self sufficient in crops, raw materials for clothing, livestock and dairy products.
It is also important to note that rural areas posses the natural beauty unlike urban areas. According to Abayo (1999:102) most rural areas still have their natural outlookas they do not have enough machinery and capital for exploitation. Inadvertently, this unexploited natural environment makes the rural areas look even more beautiful and attractive to tourists. In Malawi for example there are so many beautiful and attractive sceneries that have not been exploited and yet they are a source of attraction to tourists. Places such as Nyika plateau, Mulanje Mountain remain pillars of tourism because of their physical nature. On the other hand, devastating effects of development have left some urban areas scarred and disfigured. That is why even in most urbanized countries such as England economists have tried to improve living standards by other means such as improved agriculture other than heavy industrialization that results into disfigurement of the environment Allen and Thomas (2000:509).
Note should also be taken that rural areas experience reduced levels of pollution. Since rural areas are dominantly agrarian with few or no manufacturing industries the chances of pollution are minimal. Allen and Thomas (2000) stress that as countries industrialize there will be large increase in pollution particularly the atmospheric pollution which has been claimed will cause catastrophic climate change. This increase in atmospheric pollution is attributed to increase in energy generation through burning coal, oil or gas in the developed world. In the same way Waugh () pointed out that pollution of air by smoke from cars, and pollution of rivers and other water resources by effluents from factories has been a growing concern in most urban areas.
Similarly, a rural area is advantageous because people are mostly self-sufficient. Typically there is room for a vegetable garden and a few domestic farm animals, such as chickens, goats or pigs, which can provide fresh produce and protein staples year-round which is had to find in urban area. In a related development, Baeward and Fraser (1993) noted that most rural areas have an excess of specialists on all things to be grown and eaten, whether of the crop or crop variety. This is cheap as people have to rely even in hard time on what they already have in their homestead. In Malawi items such as seeds and fertilizer can be easily bought because of the governments core food-security-related Farm Input Subsidy Programme, which is intended to insulate farmers from escalating input costs and hence stimulate domestic maize production on which many rural poor Malawians depend.
Furthermore, living costs can be significantly less in rural