Message-ID: <36DCC56E.DBD45E3D@icimod.org.np> Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 10:45:26 +0530 From: Sangeeta Pandey <mailto:sangeeta@ICIMOD.ORG.NP> Subject: Market and Small Towns in the Hindu Kush- Himalayas: To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
ICIMOD has recently published the following Issue in Mountain Development. You can read the entire paper on the Homepage of ICIMOD athttp://www.icimod.org.sg/publications/IMD/imd98-8.htm
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Market and Small Towns in the Hindu Kush- Himalayas: Alternative Modes of Urbanisation
The last few decades have witnessed an increasing dichotomy in the spatial organization of population and economic activities in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region. At one extreme are large, often primate cities such as Kathmandu, Lhasa, or Dehradun that are growing at rates that double the population of these cities every 10 to 15 years or so and, at the other extreme, are the vast rural areas which suffer from the paucity of basic services, where outmigration has evolved as a survival strategy, and their niche-based comparative advantages cannot be harnessed because the conditions for doing so in terms of accessibility, services, and other forms of institutional support are absent. This paper examines (a) the potential functions of market and small towns; (b) their current state in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas; and (c) strategic issues in their promotion and development thereby proposing it as a resolution to the dichotomy of spatio-economic growth in the mountains and emphasising the urgency to give it a policy and programmatic focus.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Issues in Mountain Development is a series released from time to time to brief planners, development workers, researchers and donors on recent trends, findings, and issues affecting mountain development. The papers in this series can be quoted with due acknowledgments.Comments are welcome.
The entire series can be accessed at
http://www.icimod.org.sg/publications/IMD/issuetab.htm
Sangeeta Pandey Documentation Officer ICIMOD