Cities As A Poverty-alleviation Tool

Citizens living in poor rural areas seek out economic opportunities by migrating to cities. We need policy to help accommodate urbanisation, because it’s not going to slow down.

- Johan Fourie

Brazil is a fascinating country to travel to as a South African. It’s vibrant, slightly chaotic and mesmerising all in one. And, beyond the airports and major tourist areas, quite a challenge for someone with no knowledge of Portuguese.

I was invited to a rural university town in the state of Minas Gerais in May to deliver a series of talks. From the airport in Belo Horizonte my driver, hellbent on showing off his Grand Prix skills, took me on a five-hour rollercoaster ride through the hilly countryside. What was formerly a mining, coffee and sugar plantation region was now mostly vacant – most of the land reclaimed by veld and forests. The language barrier prevented a detailed enquiry, but from what I could gather, his answer was simple: people are moving to the cities. They want better lives.

Rapid migration to cities is a global phenomenon. People “vote with their feet” for better economic opportunities.

This is true in SA too. Poverty here is largely a rural phenomenon. Yes, townships on the periphery of cities house many poor residents, but they have better lives than those in the former homelands where many of them come from.

The search for a better life for them and their children is why they moved in the first place.

Those of us with a romantic view of life in the countryside may think that this flood to the cities can be reversed by, for example, policies that would expand land access or improve rural living standards. But lack of land is not the reason people migrate to cities in large numbers, not in SA and not in Europe, China or Brazil.