The Urban/Rural Interface In Ecuador: Towards integrated territorial development

Jean-Claude Bolay, IREC-DA/EPFL, Lausanne, Suisse
Diego Carrion, FAU/PUCE, Quito, Ecuador
Augusto Barrera, CIUDAD, Quito, Ecuador
Adriana Rabinovich, IREC-DA/EPFL, Lausanne, Suisse
Cherryl André de la Porte, IREC-DA/EPFL, Lausanne, Suisse
Mario Vivero, CIUDAD, Quito, Ecuador

Quito & Lausanne, May 2001

SUMMARY
Due to its speed and scope, urbanisation seriously upsets the territorial and human balance between rural and urban areas in most developing countries. Although this demographic trend is most noticeable in the major cities, it also transforms smaller urban centres (small rural towns and intermediate towns). Political and administrative decentralisation, not to mention the rapid deterioration of living conditions in the larger agglomerations, are likely to endow small urban centres with a powerful impetus in the years to come.
This new distribution of populations and their activities within urban networks directly affects the natural and built environment, generating the concentration of activities, over-use of natural resources, pollution. Moreover, rural and farming areas are also caught in the loop. The rural exodus was the root cause of the present-day migratory movements. Now, rural areas suffer the direct effects of urban growth: houses are being built on land that was once farmed, natural resources such as water and soil have deteriorated in quality and quantity. On the other hand, rural communities benefit increasingly from trade and the urban infrastructure, such as health centres and administrative services.
Only a balance between the social, economic and environmental aspects of growth will enable us to achieve sustainable development. At the territorial level, this means more coherent planning and development, to foster a balanced organisation of human settlements and the activities carried out in them.
Sustainable development should therefore be viewed as integrated regional development. It should be based on an interface between town and country, and not on conflict between them, as is so often the case. And it should never be blind to the ways in which rural and urban spaces can mutually enrich and complement each other.
The easiest level at which to achieve this form of “regionalised urban development” is the micro-regional one, putting existing contacts between rural areas, small urban centres and larger intermediate towns to good use.
This then is the focus of the research being carried out in Ecuador at the suggestion of the IREC and its local partners: the Facultad de Arquitectura y Diseño de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (Quito), the Ciudad NGO, alongside the United Nations Urban Management Programme (based also in Quito) and under the supervision of the SDC co-ordination office in Ecuador.
Based on the observation of several regional urban centres in Ecuador that function as regional service centres, the study aims to answer the following central question: what are the driving forces behind effective and positive interaction between rural areas and urban centres, interaction that fosters the complementary development of economic and social activities, as well as coherent and judicious territorial management?
We will examine the following in our search for the answer:
& Regional and local public policy concerning territorial and infrastructure planning, viewed as elements which provide a structure for coherent organisation of the regional space;
& Links between the public authorities, private parties and community organisations, viewed as elements which provide a structure for the implementation of concerted action to benefit all the groups within a region’s population;
& Social and economic activities which link the urban centre to the rural hinterland, viewed as elements which provide a structure for sustainable development that is socially and ecologically compatible;
& The environmental consequences of the rural-urban interface, viewed as symptomatic of the opportunities and risks associated with regional development.
Launched in the beginning of 2001, the study will be carried out over a three-year period and will provide a scientific analysis of the issues listed above. Within the planned partnerships, it should moreover contribute to sustaining a regional, participatory planning process associating public bodies and populations with their priorities, goals, means and strategies ("Agenda 21" approach). The study will be supervised by a steering committee.
The study was designed and will be carried out from an interdisciplinary perspective that links the social sciences with town and territorial planning. It should thus advance knowledge in the relevant areas, and provide a useful informational and methodological decision-making tool for public and private bodies involved in regional development.
This report is the result of a first series of reflections by the various research teams (IREC, PUCE, CIUDAD), and highlights two essential elements. Firstly, the precise definition of the methodology to be used for the research, notably concerning the selection of participating towns. Secondly, better knowledge of issues arising from the decentralisation and regionalisation of development, with a special focus on the current situation in Ecuador.

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IREC-DA/EPFL, Suisse
BP-Ecublens. CH-1015 Lausanne
Jean-Claude Bolay
Adriana Rabinovich

CIUDAD, Quito, Ecuador.
Calle Fernando Meneses 265
Casilla Postal 17-08-8311
Augusto Barrera
Mario Vivero