The Peri-Urban Interface: a Tale of Two Cities

THIS BOOK IS one of the outcomes of a research project funded by the UK's Department for International Development. The project began in 1996 and focused on two medium-sized city-regions, namely, Kumasi in Ghana and Hubli-Dharwad in Karnataka State, south-west India. A systems-based approach was originally adopted to study the impacts of urbanization on natural, human and financial resource flows, to characterize the main stakeholders and to develop ways in which natural resource management and agricultural production could be improved. Between 1996 and 2000, these two studies have produced a large quantity of information. At the same time, the project's objective was re-directed in 1999 towards an explicit focus on the livelihoods of the poor in peri-urban areas. The aim of this book is to consolidate knowledge generated by the previous studies and to serve as the base for further research within the project's revised conceptual framework. This, in turn, draws on the sustainable livelihoods framework developed by the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex and is adapted to accommodate DFID's particular concerns.

In peri-urban contexts, it is important to understand the specific opportunities which arise
from the meeting of rural and urban processes, and how these affect the livelihoods of the poor.
However, it is also essential to locate the peri-urban interface within the wider, regional and national
contexts. In the first chapter, the authors review the main social and economic features of Ghana and
India as a backdrop to the comparative approach used throughout the book. The second chapter
provides a more detailed description of the spatial, human and economic development of Kumasi and
Hubli-Dharwad, and especially of the institutional framework under which the peri-urban interface
has developed in recent years, and of the decision-making processes which are likely to shape it in the
near future, and the implications for the poorest inhabitants. This is followed by three chapters which
summarize the natural resource base of the peri-urban interface of the two cities. This includes a
description of how cropping and livestock systems, and soil, water and waste management have been
affected by processes of urbanization, where this is known.

Poverty in the peri-urban interface is discussed in Chapter 6, where the authors draw on the
research materials to examine how processes specific to the highly dynamic peri-urban interface affect
the livelihoods of the poor by transforming their access to different assets. The final chapter is
different in nature from the others as it concentrates on the use of a particular technology, namely,
Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The importance of this management and descriptive tool
has increased with the growing availability of computers. In the rapidly changing peri-urban
interface, its ability to speedily process new data makes it a potentially powerful instrument for
planning and analysis, as shown by the project's experience in Kumasi.