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Environment and Urbanization
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DOI: 10.1177/095624789600800107
1996 8: 129 Environment and Urbanization
John Friedmann
Modular cities: beyond the rural-urban divide

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by Sani Roychansyah on October 18, 2011 eau.sagepub.com Downloaded from
129 Environment and Urbanization, Vol. 8, No. 1, April 1996
RURAL-URBAN
Modular cities: beyond
the rural-urban divide
John Friedmann
SUMMARY: This paper describes how town-centred, self-govern-
ing agropolitan districts could be developed in high density ru-
ral or peri-urban areas to raise living standards and increase
employment opportunities there. They should also preserve the
integrity of households and village communities and thus reduce
the scale of migration to cities and the social costs that most
such migrants face in cities.
THE QUESTION IS: what cities shall we choose to build? I
dont mean to imply that we are completely free to choose. His-
tory, culture and the structuring forces of the global economy
must be considered. But given these constraints, what are the
choices for public policy in the construction of cities?
A central issue I wish to address is the rural-urban divide
that pits cities against the countryside as two irreconcilable so-
cial, moral and physical formations. Since the early decades of
the nineteenth century, overcoming the rural-urban divide has
been a persisting but largely unrealized dream. In practice, the
implicit model of development was one of urban based industri-
alization. The countryside would be drained of its surplus
population who would go and seek their fortune in the burgeon-
ing cities. While manufacturing and trade, the two dynamic
sectors, would be concentrated there, agricultural production
would gradually be modernized, eventually releasing all but a
residual working population to the metropolis.
The rural-urban divide was thus imagined as a specific form
of the spatial division of labour. Population would flow from a
relatively unproductive, culturally retarded countryside to the
new centres of production with their many-stranded links to
the international economy. In the provision of urban services,
the densification of population was thought to be an economi-
cally efficient form and all attempts by planners to define an
optimum size of city failed as urban populations expanded at
geometric rates reaching, in some instances, megalopolitan size.
But something was surely wrong with the dominant spatial model
of development expressed here in its most blatant form. What
was it?
For one thing, it turned out that the spatial division of labour
was not nearly as rigid as had been supposed. Light industries
of all sorts were established in rural areas whilst agriculture
John Friedmann is Professor
Emeritus of Urban Planning at
the University of California in
Los Angeles and has written
widely about development, re-
gional development, urbaniza-
tion and planning theory. His
more recent books include
Empowerment: The Politics of
Alternative Development,
Blackwells, Oxford and Cam-
bridge (USA), 1992 and In
Defense of Livelihood: Com-
parative Studies on Environ-
mental Action (edited with
Haripriya Rangan), Kumarian
Press and UNRISD, 1993.
Address: Department of Urban
Planning, School of Public
Policy and Social Research,
UCLA, 405 Hilgard Avenue,
Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA,
fax: (1) 310 206 5566.
by Sani Roychansyah on October 18, 2011 eau.sagepub.com Downloaded from
130 Environment and Urbanization, Vol. 8, No. 1, April 1996
RURAL-URBAN
(along with small livestock production) came to be acknowledged
as urban activities as well, particularly along the ragged edges
of the metropolis. As for households, they struggled to survive
in a rapidly changing world, no longer dependent on a single
source of income but trying to ensure their livelihood by engag-
ing in a diverse, constantly shifting portfolio of economic activi-
ties. The vaunted efficiency of the emerging urban form, with
its ultra-high densities and squalid living quarters, was also
increasingly being questioned. Clearly, the local state was un-
able adequately to service the huge numbers of new migrants.
Between 30 and 60 per cent of a population that was doubling
with each generation lived in impoverished conditions. Long-
distance migration placed the moral and social bonds of fami-
lies under severe strain. The many young people, born into the
city but unable to gain a foothold in the legitimate economy,
opted for a life in the illicit markets of the city. In Manuel Castells
apt phrase, cities in the newly industrializing countries grew
into wild cities. Sprouting violence, they became dangerous
places where anyone might suddenly become a victim. These
social costs of an urban based development alienation, violence,
fear and (inevitably) police repression were never counted in the
narrow efficiency calculus of economists.
Although many would come to accept it as a face of nature,
the rural-urban divide did not remain unchallenged. Beginning
with Peter Kropotkin and Ebenezer Howard, both with roots in
anarchist thinking, a line of utopians, reformers and revolu-
tionaries that included Lewis Mumford, Frank Lloyd Wright and
Mao Ze Dong had visions of a city in the countryside.
(1)
I, too,
was moved to write about ways of overcoming the rural-urban
divide. I called it a strategy of agropolitan development.
(2)
Failure to fully realize these dreams has not stopped the dream-
ing. In the remainder of this paper, therefore, I will propose a
modified version of agropolitan development which, for present
purposes, I shall also refer to as a model of modular urbaniza-
tion. What are its principal features?
1. The basic urban module, which could be laid down on any
high-density rural or peri-urban area, would consist of a self-
governing unit of local government or district with a popula-
tion of 10-15,000 spread over an area of 10 to 15 square
kilometres.
2. Each district would have a service centre that is easily ac-
cessible on foot or bicycle from any part of the district within
20 minutes or less.
3. Each centre would have a standardized complement of pub-
lic facilities and services including:
markets, both open and covered
district offices and place(s) of civic assembly
primary and secondary schools
basic health facilities and services
sports facilities
a government service centre
1. Kropotki n, Peter (1898),
Fields, Factories and Work-
shops; also Howard, Ebenezer
(1902), Garden Cities of Tomor-
row; Mumford, Lewis (1938), The
Culture of Cities; and Lloyd
Wright, Frank (1945), When De-
mocracy Builds.
2. Friedman, John (1988), Life
Space and Economic Space,
Transaction Books, Brunswick
NJ, Chapters 8 and 9, originally
published in 1981 and 1985 re-
spectively.
by Sani Roychansyah on October 18, 2011 eau.sagepub.com Downloaded from
131 Environment and Urbanization, Vol. 8, No. 1, April 1996
RURAL-URBAN
a post office and telecommunications centre
a police post
a bus terminal
a water treatment plant
shell housing for business and industrial use
housing for essential government personnel (most of the
district population would continue to live on farms out-
side this quiet centre even though they might work there
or attend school).
4. Each district centre would be connected to other centres in
the region through a network of all-weather roads that would
provide for the lane separated traffic of pedestrians, bicycles,
motorcycles, animal-drawn vehicles, buses and trucks.
5. To the extent possible, solar power would be used through-
out the district for all essential household and public pur-
poses.
6. Small manufacturing industries would be distributed
throughout district villages and along the principal road net-
work.
7. The aim of agropolitan development would be to create, within
an appropriate regional framework, a balanced district
economy that would derive up to one-third of its income from
agriculture and related activities, up to one-fifth from indus-
trial work, up to one-half from trade and services and up to
one-seventh from government.
This module of a town centred, self-governing, agropolitan
district could be replicated indefinitely, adapted as appropriate
to local geography and culture. Simple in execution, it would
be modified as experience accumulates to produce a variegated
landscape of agropolitan development.
The result of implementing a policy of modular urbanization
would be to dramatically raise living standards in rural areas
whilst avoiding the social disruptions that attend urban mass
migration. Although city-ward migration would continue, one
would expect its rate to be cut back sharply allowing urban
governments to catch up in the provision of essential services
to all parts of the city. Agropolitan town centres and light in-
dustries would provide for off-farm employment. An important
objective of agropolitan development would thus be to preserve
the integrity of both households and village communities. Self-
government would encourage local democracy within a context
of regional government and administration. Physical access from
district to district as well as to major urban areas would be
facilitated. The standardization of the urban module, and the
ability to implement it sequentially, would significantly reduce
out-of-pocket costs of urbanization whilst raising indicators of
human development. The modular city, in short, is a model of a
socially and ecologically sustainable development. The choice
to refine it and implement it is ours; it is not yet too late.
by Sani Roychansyah on October 18, 2011 eau.sagepub.com Downloaded from