The document discusses the Development Planning Unit's work on peri-urban areas over the past decade. It began with general comparative research and applied research in Hubli-Dharwad, India, and has expanded to include participatory planning, publications, conferences, and initiatives focused on peri-urban water and sanitation. The peri-urban interface is defined as a transition zone between urban and rural areas characterized by mixed land uses and livelihoods. Rapid urbanization and economic changes are driving complex dynamics around land, infrastructure, and social structures in peri-urban areas. The DPU advocates for research and planning that moves beyond negative conceptualizations to recognize opportunities in hybrid peri-urban situations.

1. Development Planning Unit (DPU)
A PERIscope on the PERI-urban
Adriana Allen (a.allen@ucl.ac.uk)
DPU Environmental Justice, Urbanisation and
Resilience Programme
Pathways to Sustainability:
Agendas for a New Politics of Environment, Development and Social Justice
23 - 24 September 2010,
Institute of Development Studies, Sussex University
Panel: Peri-urban dynamics

2. DPU’s Peri-urban Interface Programme ‘Journey’
General & comparative Applied research in Papers
research Hubli-Dharwad, India Drama, Video
Posters / website
1998 PUI environmental Guidelines
planning & management PUI knowledge
1999 (DFID) consolidation Book: “A Tale
Hubli Dharwad (India) (NRSP DFID) of Two Cities”
Manizales (Colombia)
2000 Kumasi (Ghana) PUI participatory Newsletters
External Support Agencies planning Publications
Book
(NRSP DFID)
2001 Publications
International conference: “Rural-Urban Encounters”
Brasilia NEUR-DPU link
Rural-Urban Network
2002 Seminars / Public.
(FAO) Urbanisation &
Publication /
(BC) EEZ
2003 Urban/PU agriculture FAO Website
Service provision Participatory action Publications
2004 governance in the planning Website
PUI of metropolitan In the PUI Particip. Video
regions Workshops
2005 (NRSP DFID)
(DFID) (Action networks)
Mexico, Caracas Publications
2006 Cairo, Chennai & Website
Dar es Salaam Dialogue fora
Guidelines
Various ongoing initiatives focused on the co-production of
2010 peri-urban water and sanitation

3. Why to be concerned?
Living between two worlds
• A large percentage of the future population growth in developing
countries will occur in the localised spaces where the urban meets
the rural as cities and their impacts spread into outlying areas.
…and yet
• Current national and international initiatives and commitments to
improve the sustainable development of rapidly urbanising areas in
the developing world tend to neglect the peri-urban context
Beyond the rural-urban dichotomy
• The traditional distinction between urban and rural areas is
becoming increasingly blurred and insufficient to capture the reality
of a large number of dwellers that live between those areas
…in particular,
• an increasing number of the poor, engaged in rural-urban
interchanges as a result of undue reliance on farming, declining real
output prices, limited markets, price instability, climatic and market
risks, absence of rural financial markets, declining farm sizes, etc.

4. Urbanisation without infrastructure

5. Land conflicts and forced evictions
60-70 millions people will have been
evicted between 2000 and 2020

6. ‘Second nature’ versus ‘first nature’?

7. On definitions: ‘Peri-urban’ as….
 the urban fringe: “the space into which the town extends as the
process of dispersion operates ...an area with distinctive characteristics
which is only partly assimilated into the growing urban complex” (Adell,
1999 citing Carter’s 1981 definition).
 as a ‘lacking’ area: “usually characterised by the loss of rural
aspects (e.g.: fertile soil, agricultural land, natural landscape) or the lack
of urban attributes (such as services & infrastructure)” (Allen, 2003).
 a transition zone: “of interaction between urban and rural socio-
economic systems; …. a zone of rapid economic, social structural
change (Rakodi, 1998 cited in Adell, 1999)”.
 a new kind of ‘rural/urban hybrid’: “a dramatic new species of
urbanism” (Davis 2004).
 a challenging ‘periphery’: subject to “ambiguity, informality and
illegality”…But also encompassing unconventional or unorthodox
alternatives to dominant planning and management perspectives.

8. On emerging landscapes in
the rural-urban continuum…
 Towards a space-less city-region? Edge-cities, post-
suburban landscapes and the ‘informational city’
 Region-based urbanisation: ‘extended metropolitan
regions’ (Ginsburg et al, 1991) , ‘ruralopolises’ (Qadeer,
2000) and the ‘desakota’ (McGee,1991)
 Sustainable urbanisation as ‘reciprocal
urbanisation’? From spatial definitions to functional and
relational focus on rural-urban flows

9. Rural-urban linkages
Rural systems Rural – Urban Flows Urban systems
People
Non-agricultural
Socio-economic employment
Production Urban services
structure and
relations Production supplies
Commodities Non-durable and
Rural economy durable goods
(sectors)
Capital/income Markets for selling
Rural production rural products
regimes Information Processing /
manufacturing
Information on
Natural resources
employment,
production, prices,
Waste and pollution welfare services
Source: Allen, 2003, based on Douglass, 1998:31.

10.  The PUI is a mosaic of The ‘Peri-urban Interface’
‘natural’, ‘productive’
and ‘urban’ sub-
systems
Affected by material and
energy flows demanded by
both rural and urban areas.
 Heterogeneous and
changing social and
economic structures
Mix of mix of newcomers
and long-established
dwellers.
Mix of farming, residential
and industrial land uses.
Diversified livelihoods
strategies
 Fragmented
institutional landscape
Affected by rapid change
and unclear boundaries and
jurisdictions.

11. On the drivers of change
 ‘urban and rural economic refugees’ in search of
cheaper residential land and multiple livelihood
opportunities;
 conservationists’ who buy bush or farm blocks for re-
vegetation or timber plantations;
 ‘minimalisers’ seeking to establish less materially
intensive lifestyles with a degree of self-sufficiency;
 ‘sprawlers’ seeking larger blocks than available in urban
areas, where they can live extended suburban lifestyles
 and many more….

12. On intervention models
Source: Allen, A, ‘Rural-urban linkages: Models of intervention’ in SOFA (2002:90-106).

13. On planning and research implications
 Beyond negative conceptualisations
 Maintaining a focus on ‘hidden’ entities
 From lacking areas to ‘insurgent
peripheries’
 Recognising opportunities in hybrid
situations
 Turning the peri-urban notion inside out