In recent years some countries have experienced very rapid economic development. This has resulted in much higher standards of living in urban areas but not in the country side. This situation may bring some problems for the country as a whole. What are these problems? How might they be reduced?

 

In recent years some countries have experienced very rapid economic development. This has resulted in much higher standards of living in urban areas but not in the country side. This situation may bring some problems for the country as a whole. What are these problems? How might they be reduced?

From the evidence of developing countries all over the world, it seems inevitable  that economic growth is generated in the business and industrial centers of the major cities. As a result, urban citizens have access to jobs and facilities that improve their living standards considerably. However, it is usually the case that these are not equally enjoyed by people in the countryside and this generates several problems for the countries concerned.

First of all, people from the countryside will try to move to the cities to get more employment opportunities and better access to facilities available there. However, this increase in the urban population puts great pressure on housing and services, and leads to the creation of massive slum areas where conditions may be lower than standards in the rural villages which are often left under-populated. This can impact food production and can have severe affects for people in both urban and rural areas.

Finally, as a country’s economy develops, there may be an increasing sense of inequality as the towns get richer and the villages get poorer, and this may lead to more crime and even civil unrest. The key to reducing these problems seems to lie in improving the standard of living and the facilities available in the countryside. Perhaps incentives can be offered to factories and companies to relocate; road and rail networks can be built to make such relocation possible; doctors and teachers could be required to spend part of their professional lives in rural areas.

In conclusion, discrepancies in economic growth can cause pressures on the overall living standards and many production activities. The essential way to deal with this is to try to rebalance the equality scale between urban and rural areas, by improving facilities and relocating businesses to the less advantaged regions.