Rural-Urban Transition

Like elsewhere, migration-led peri-urban (rural clusters) growth of cities has been an important element of rural-urban transformation for centuries. However, only recently, in this process, the rural landscape also benefits from these changes, owing to better communication and market access. Peri-urban areas are consuming peripheral villages. This has put pressure on land and water resources putting environmental health at stake. Loss of biodiversity is imminent due to changing ecological frame conditions in an increasingly human-made environment. In many areas rural populations are also shifting away from traditional farming towards white-collar jobs. While this could have positive implications for the socio-economic structure of the society at large, it will also present new challenges for meeting the food and nutritional requirements of the population as a whole. New farming models and marketing innovations are required to meet increasing food demands and changes of consumption habits. This working paper describes the ongoing rural-urban transition and discuss the potential for carving new cropping systems and entrepreneurship options in newly formed agro-ecologies and semi-urban rural clusters of Pakistan. It is hoped that it will also help initiating further study and compilation of empirical evidence.