interfase urbano-rural en ecuador hacia un desarrollo territorial ...

SUMMARY
1 THE RESEARCH PROJECT: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND WORKING
METHODOLOGY
1.1 Urbanization in developing countries
Today, urbanization may be considered as one of the most decisive phenomena in the evolution of the
contemporary world. The concentration of individuals, activities and services in an urban environment
has been a strong tendency worldwide for several decades (UNCHS, 2001). This process leads to a
crisis in the relations between regions, both within countries and at international level, and, at the same
time, it increases the exploitation and degradation of natural resources and transforms the relations
between individuals and societies.
With more than 75% of its population resident in urban areas, the region of Central and South America
is the part of the developing world that is most directly confronted with the problems of urbanization
(Carrión, 1995). Moreover, although it is certain that the evolution of Latin America reflects
metropolitan centrality (Dollfuss et al., 1994; Bataillon & Gilard, 1988), this continent also exhibits
the most recent stage in the urban movement, which has been marked lately by decentralization (Rossi
et al., 1999) and the strengthening of smaller cities and towns (Jordan & Simioni, 1998; Gugler, 1992;
Hardoy & Satterthwaite, 1986).
The rural and agricultural regions are not excluded from this trend. In addition to being the original
sources of migratory movements, these regions suffer from the effects of urban growth: land use
changes in favour of housing, deterioration of the quality and quantity of natural resources (such as
water and soil), etc. On the other hand, they also benefit from numerous trade exchanges and urban
facilities of regional scope (such as centres for health, education, administration, etc.).
Therefore, starting from the lower levels of urban articulation and in particular the interface between
urban development and rural development, the territorial transformations that benefit a kind of
regional development based on complementarity and exchange, as they currently appear in the third
world (Carrión, 1996), can be usefully investigated. Concerning small regional centres, whose
function seems to be fundamental on the local and national planes, their problems have been studied
only to a limited extent and still remain open to further investigation.
1.2 Decentralization, a new role for cities and their regions
In Latin America, with the processes of democratization set under way in the 1980s, the reforms of
government, decentralization and administrative deconcentration have increased, over the last fifteen
years or so, the political weight of the municipalities in most of the countries, and their growth will
continue in future 1 .
However, the Latin-American “municipality” is not solidly established as an institution, and its
evolution continues. Decentralization has strengthened it administratively, but the transfer of areas of
competence that it has entailed has often not been accompanied by an actual transfer of authority or by
significant access to financial resources 2 . The process of democratization has led to the birth of
political, civic and community participation mechanisms, but they remain inoperative. Generally
1 It is estimated that more than 80% of the developing countries with more than 5 million inhabitants are engaged in
decentralization efforts (OECD, 1997).
2 In the case of Ecuador, for example, although a Decentralization Law was introduced in 1998, just a few minor areas of
competence have been transferred to the municipalities (tourism, secondary roads and, recently, the environment). The transfer
mechanism of resources deriving from these new areas of competence is still not clear. We shall come back to these aspects in
Chapter 3.
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