•
The pro-urban view
On the other end, urbanization, which was seen as an inevitable development on the transition from agrarian to industrial society, and the rise of migrating communities from rural to urban, became the main features of the pro-urban view. During this period the flourishing of scientific and technological innovation was considered tightly related to the urban realm, looking at cities as incubators that fostered the flourishing of advanced culture, innovation, and scientific and artistic knowledge (Davoudi and Stead, 2002). The city was as well seen as an engine of economic growth, and the rise of the city was linked to the rise of the institution of authority and complex economies, based on complex social systems (Le Gates and Stout, 1996). According to Davoudi and Stead (2002), and based on Davis’ (1965) definition of urbanization7, one major event of the ‘pro-urban view’ was the distinction between ‘urbanization’ and ‘urban expansion and economic growth’, arguing that the eventual end of urbanization of any specific context, doesn’t necessary relate to the end of city growth, which can simultaneously happen upwards and outwards in both developed and developing countries.
2.2
Definitions and Typologies Proposed by International Organizations
As the boundaries between urban and rural become more and more blurred in spatial, social, economic and cultural terms, a clear division between the two, both in highly developed and in developing countries, becomes increasingly complex (UN SD, 2017). Over the time, in order to explore and determine urban and rural areas, beyond what perceptual understandings allow us to define as such, various classification systems and methods based on statistical data, have been generated. The benefit of these classifications is to better understand the different characteristics of the urban and rural areas in a consistent and transparent way, and at the same time to show that no single urban/ rural typology can be used for all the geographies (Pateman, 2011). 7“Davis
(1965) defined “urbanization” as the rate of change of the proportion of the urban population, arguing that an
increase can take place without the growth of cities by, for example, a decline in the rural population. Following the same argument, urban populations can grow without an increase in urbanization provided that rural population grows at an equal or greater rate” (Davoudi and Stead, 2002: 5).
47
