The rural-urban dichotomy in the developing world: a case study from Northern Ethiopia

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Dissertation / thesis

Title:	The rural-urban dichotomy in the developing world: a case study from Northern Ethiopia
Author:	Baker, Jonathan
Year:	1986
Pages:	372
Language:	English
City of publisher:	Oslo
Publisher:	Norwegian University Press
ISBN:	8200074129
Geographic term:	Ethiopia
Subjects:	urban society urbanization small towns dissertations (form)
Abstract:	This book is concerned with the study of small town life in the northwestern part of Ethiopia during the reign of Haile Selassie I. Its first objective is to present a neglected field within Third World social geography: the internal social and economic structures of small towns, their trade functions, agriculture, and hinterland relations. Second, it gives an assessment of the colonial impact within the urban structure. Despite the limited duration of Italian control in Ethiopia, the colonial intrusion has had some lasting influence, particularly in an urban form. Third, as a backdrop to the study, the author discusses Louis Wirth's classic essay 'Urbanism as a way of life' (1938), in which he contended that there were fundamental sociological differences between urban and rural life. The study is based on data collected in 1969-1970, when the author joined the Royal Society High Altitude Expedition, whose main objective was to assess the nutritional status of the population of two urban centres, Debarech and Adi Arkai.