Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Rural and Urban Community Development

Central to our discussion in this book is the concept "development," which is very difficult to be given a definition that is generally acceptable, owing to the fact that its meaning is affected by human values, intellectual orientation, and differences in schools of thought and ideologies. In addition, it is very difficult to describe a process as absolutely developing because what is regarded as a development in a particular situation might be underdevelopment in another. A situation that has developed a society might be what has underdeveloped another, as is evident in Walter Rodney's (1982) account of how Europe underdeveloped Africa. He believes that the process that underdeveloped Africa was the same one that developed Europe.

Two major schools of development, the modernization and the dependency, are identified in this book. The modernization school conceives development as becoming modern and believes that development can be quantified and compared, resulting to a universal measurement for a comparative analysis of all societies irrespective of culture, geographical location, and history. The school agrees with Talcott Parsons's evolutionary universals, which Parsons believes are the same all over societies. The school submits, on that basis, that the indices of development are the same all over the world. The modernization school also believes that modernization is the same across all societies. Development is therefore conceived as a process that occurs in degrees, and a society can only be more or less developed. The difference between the rural and the urban in terms of development is considered in terms of degrees or sometimes arranged as a continuum.

The modernization school therefore constructed a scale by which rural and urban development is measured. This is called the rural-urban continuum. On the continuum, cities and societies are placed on particular positions on the basis of certain characteristics or variables that are present in them. The modernization school believes in what is called an index gap approach to the solutions of the problems of rural and urban development. According to this approach, a society that considers itself not developed enough should measure itself against a developed society to isolate those variables that it lacked but are present in the developed ones. It is believed that the development of the developed society was possible because of the presence of those variables that the undeveloped lacked. The acquisition of those variables by the underdeveloped society will make it catch up with the developed society. This school believes that this is true for countries and nations of the world as well as for rural and urban societies. Rural and urban development planning, to the planners utilizing this approach, is therefore very simple. A society or any human settlement that believes it is not developed enough should just identify a developed settlement, county, or city and just make a list of what the developed one has and try to acquire them. This would bring development to the undeveloped.

This approach is too simple and also beset with problems. It has failed to recognize the ways of life of different societies and the different needs that are being dictated by these different cultures. If rigidly followed in rural and urban development planning, it might lead to underdevelopment. This theory has been described as evolutionary in nature (Nisbet 1977; Teggart 1977; Lyman 1978; Ogunnika 1985). It tries to prescribe a general solution to all problems of development in all nations and societies. To develop adequately, societies only need to acquire what McClelland identified as N-Ach, or achievement motivation variable. Inkeles called them the overall modernity variables, while Hagen believes that the development of any society depends on innovators. A society is therefore urban or rural according to the degree of human beings who are carriers of the above variables, as they will eventually produce other physical and social variables, making the societies where they are found or where they are not found either developed or undeveloped, rural or urban. Societies that lacked them would surely be rural, as their absence will lead into lack of physical variables of urbanization. Urbanization therefore is equated with modernization and development, while rural society is seen as undeveloped.

The Dependency Approach

The dependency school faults the modernization school's approach to development. In contradistinction from the view of the modernization school, the dependency school believes that development is external to any society. It was argued that the cause of underdevelopment of rural societies should not be blamed on the rural dwellers but on factors and processes in the urban areas that are being allowed to happen by the political power elites who benefit from the exploitation of the rural dwellers (Ogunnika).

Rural and urban development planning, according to this approach, should not be concentrated only on identifying variables present in a supposed developed society or nation that are believed to be absent in others. Rather, development planning in rural/ urban societies should identify the societies (within or without the general society) that the particular society is interacting with. We should then determine who benefits from such relationship and try to halt the process by which one benefits and the other loses. It is the parasitic relationship between the developed and the underdevelopment that rural/urban development planners should be looking for. This school believes that a rural development planner should try to ask questions like What are the main occupations of the people? Who buys the products of the farmers? Are the middlemen from the urban areas paying a fair price for the products? The planner should be willing to find out whether the contractor who has been awarded any rural project was using the correct material he would have used had the project been in an urban area.

Development therefore is seen differently by the two schools. The modernization school believes that development is an increase in the volume of per capita income and productivity of a country. The school also believes that social development means the ability of the individuals to engage in behavior that could be called modern. To be modern is to imitate the West because modernization is regarded as Westernization. Rural and urban development that follows this model should place emphasis on the increase in productivity of the rural dwellers and the presence in the rural areas of traits of urbanism. In the urban area development planning, if the approach is followed, it becomes the importation of Western influence, physically and socially.

The dependency school, however, submits that development is freedom. It is the ability of the people to determine their own fates without a forced influence from any quarter. It therefore means the ability of the rural people to determine what they should produce, the price at which they would sell the product, and the type of life they will live. Also in the urban dimension, development should manifest in the ability of the people and government to control the huge investment in cities without any foreign intervention and the ability to maintain and sustain the growth of the development without any external influence.

The two approaches led to the two strategies for rural/urban development, which are the directive and nondirective approaches. One central point here is that rural and urban development refers to the ability of the people in these areas to engage in processes that would increase their living standard and that of the society. It is a continuous process. No society is fully developed. Development has its many dimensions, and a society can be developed in one area and not in the other. These sectors are economic, political, social and cultural, educational, and many others. A society that pursues a development planning program that favors the development of the sector individually is said to be following sectoral development program policy. The second approach emphasizes the joint development of all the sectors at the same time, and it is referred to as integrative approach.

Rural and Urban

Rural and urban are relative terms. The anthropologist Redfield described a rural society as relatively small isolated, otherworldly in their relationship toward the sacred and profane, fatalistic in their day-to-day behaviors, and also suspicious of strangers. Other writers added that the rural is nonliterate and closer to nature in occupation because of the predominance of a farming population. Marx and the early Marxists submitted that the rural dwellers are peasants who are alike in their predicament but not alike in their solution to the problem. They plant the same crops and live in the same condition but were unable to unite and effect a positive change for development in their life (Marx 1950). But Nyerere saw the rural dwellers as a positive agent of development because they are those who pay the bill for the development of everything in the city. The city is just an exploiter where nothing is contributed to development but where everything is being consumed (Nyerere 1968). Frantz Fanon also saw the rural dwellers as the backbone of modern revolution in the third world (Fanon 1967).

Most of the qualities described above might no longer be correct today. The rural is not as isolated as Redfield saw them. This is because of the influence of mass media and transportation aided by the presence of modern cybernetics (Internet and computers). But some rural areas, especially in the developing nations, are more or less still isolated. These areas need to be brought to the open through good development planning. One thing is clear from the discussion on the rural dwellers above, and that is the rural dwellers are people who can and have contributed to national development, and a good development planning program will definitely increase their level of participation in the development of our societies.

It is very wrong if we rush to conclude that the urban is exactly the opposite of the rural. Rather, it is a more or less term. That is why Robert Redfield utilized the rural-urban continuum scale to describe the situation. No city would perfectly fit into an ideal urban situation, and none would totally be rural. However, theories have been utilizing some working definitions for the urban phenomenon.

Louis Wirth, in reference to the city, utilized three variables: size, density, and heterogeneity. He also added the presence of a literate population and specialist professionals. Robert Park, of the human ecologists, says that a city has a life of its own. Its great size and dense and diverse population is all natural. The city is therefore, to Park, a home of civilization, while the country is a home of culture. Some even see the urban areas as a home of deregulation and is crime infested.

These are the conclusions that could be drawn from the definitions of the two terms:

1. Both rural and urban areas are settlements of human population.

2. Because of the above (1), both rural and urban areas should be developed and be made inhabitable for human beings.

3. The development in one would definitely affect development in the other.

4. Development planning program would benefit the inhabitants of both areas and would ensure a conflict-free society.

Approaches to Community Development

Here we will refrain from using the two concepts — rural and urban — separately; instead, we will substitute the two concepts with the term "community." There are two major approaches to community (rural and urban) development planning. These are sectoral and integrated. The sectoral planning approach can also be called the need approach. The basic tenet of the approach is that a community always has a pressing need at a particular time; if we really want that community to develop, we should, first of all, solve that need and then identify the next pressing need. By so doing, we shall definitely solve all the problems of the society eventually. The approach is based on Maslow's theory of hierarchy of needs. Maslow believes that human (community) needs are arranged in a descending order of prepotency. Motivation for any action is based on the potent or the pressing need at a particular time; once it is solved, the next need in the hierarchy becomes the next motivating factor for human action.

The sectoral approach to community development believes that members of a community will be motivated to work well if their present need can be identified and provided. They will even appreciate the effort of a planner who can identify their current need. For example, the protagonists of this approach would want the government to identify the most pressing of all the rural and urban problems and solve it first. The other problems should be arranged in order of importance. The government should therefore find a solution to the most pressing problem before embarking on the solution of the less-pressing ones. The protagonist believes that this would cut cost for the planner, as many irons would not be put into the fire at the same time.

The second approach — the integrated rural development — is against the ideas expressed above. The protagonist believes that sectoral development is not a good approach to community development. They believe in the holistic approach because all sectors of a community are interrelated. If a single sector is developed without the other, the other sectors will eventually pull down the developed sector. All the sectors in the community should be simultaneously developed. For example, if the government concentrates on the distribution of seeds, which can produce more without doing anything about the health delivery system, the aim of agricultural productivity will be defeated. This is because much labor time will be lost due to the health condition of the people.

Adedeji supports the integrated development protagonists in his analysis of urban development planning program in Nigeria. He (Adedeji) believes that the three sectors of physical, economic, and social, which are necessary factors for community development, must be simultaneously developed because "concentration on any one of these sectors to the detriment of others will not give the desired results." He added that the maintenance of a balance in the approach to community development is essential to success in solving the problems. The protagonists of integrated development went further and said not only do we need integrated development within the urban and rural sectors but also there must be integration between urban and rural sectors. This means that urban and rural development program must be simultaneously planned and executed. This is because the problem in one sector would affect the other, since there is what is known as urban and rural interpretation. The overall development of the nation as a whole depends on how well the community can be developed within this integration. If the urban is developed without the rural, the problem will arise, and similarly the development of the rural, leaving out urban, will kill the market for rural goods and increase rural poverty. Mabogunje (1980) blamed the failure of colonial economic development on their inability to create rural-urban integration in their colonies. The colonial government engaged only in sectoral development and resisted anything that would compete with their programs. However, sectoral and integrated development approaches will only tell us what to do but not how to do it. There are basically two methods that identify what and who should engage in real action of community development program. These methods are the directive and nondirective methods to community development. The use of either integrated or sectoral approaches needs to be matched with any of the two methods. This will facilitate the real execution of development planning programs. If this is done, we shall end up with four distinctive approaches to development planning programs as shown in table 1 below:

The four approaches arrived at are

1. directive/sectoral planning program

2. nondirective/sectoral planning program

3. directive/integrated planning program

4. nondirective/integrated planning program