In choosing small urban centers for study and arguing that they were strategic for development, we did not suggest that small urban centers were at present generally playing a positive role in rural development, nor that it would necessarily be easy to get them to do so without major changes or even radical transformations of society. The argument was, that if effective rural development were achieved, small urban centers would certainly have to play a crucial part in it. They may therefore act as sensitive barometers of the adequacy or inadequacy of rural development efforts. Combing the literature on small urban centers in Africa, and in Asia and Latin America as well, has certainly convinced this writer that the instances in which small urban centers are playing anything like an adequate positive role are distinctly rare, and most situations convey the very strong impression that quite fundamental transformations of society—of political and economic structures—will be necessary if they are to have any serious chance of doing so. To study small urban centers without paying attention to the macroeconomic and political context in which they are set may therefore be futile.

Although there is a plethora of works on migratory processes and migrant organizations, few of these deal with the contribution of rural-to-rural migrants to socio-economic development and the emergence of small urban centres. Migration involves permanent or semi-permanent changes in residence and takes account of factors which intervene between the economic opportunities and social conditions of the place of origin and those of the destination (Lee 1966; Otite f.c; Udo 1975). Economic and non-economic calculations of cost are important in all decisions to migrate. Rural-to-rural migration (with which we are concerned here) involves those who because of their low education and incentives decided to move to exploit familiar resources in new rural environments. Perhaps it is through in depth anthropological studies that the best light may be shed on the contributions of such migrants to development in the particular place to which they migrate.

The growth and development of a town are mainly reciprocals of population growth, location of industries and specialization of the inhabitants. Nsukka and Awka represent two points on our developmental scale. Their growth and development while comparable in some ways are functions of different variables.

Southern Ghana has for centuries been a region marked by continuous movement of population, both of groups and individuals; by ever-changing forms of social stratification; by urban centres of various kinds and sizes; and by trade with the outside world. Yet tradition and ‘custom’ are of great importance for the people. And despite marked economic and political development, kingship, matrilineal descent, and urbanism have remained central in most of the area in both national and local social systems.

‘As theories of development, dualist interpretations have difficulty in accounting for the origin and the dynamic of a system which is, on the surface, dichotomous’. Our acceptance of a dividing line between ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ sectorsin African societies and the sectoral approach to issues of development allows for the continuing dominance of dualist assumptions in all fields.With the introduction of a differentiation in scale between ‘urban centres’, ‘small urban centres’ and rural areas it appears that we are in a position where the introduction of the idea of continuity between rural and urban sectors may be accepted:

Societies in transition are often a source of controversy, as they characteristically abound in ambiguities of both form and content. Historically they represent a dramatic juxtaposition of continuity and change.

In a large area stretching north and west from Mombasa and inland from Kenya's coast, into Kilifi District, a number of small tradin centres have come to express recent changes in the relationship of Muslims to non-Muslims. The area is generally divisible into three ecological zones, identified as fishing, farming, and cattle-herding. Until Kenya's independence in 1963 the coastal strip up to about ten miles inland fell under the suzerainty of the Sultan of Zanzibar and so was dominated by Muslims. In this coastal zone fishing was, and to a large extent still is, carried out by Muslims, and farmland was held in freehold tenure by Muslims, many of whom employed non-Muslims from the hinterland to work for them, often in exchange for the use ofsome fertile coastal land. Behind the ten-mile coastal strip, non-Muslims farmed and herded cattle on land held in customary tenure. The coastal zone was thus a Muslim stronghold, yet with many non-Muslims later identified as ‘squatters’, while the hinterland wasa non-Muslim area. Since 1963 many non-Muslim ‘squatters’have been given legal rights to the land they occupy in the coastal zone, in the form of settlement scheme plots. Non-Muslims have also, since the coastal strip ceased to fall under Muslim political control, moved into trade or house-letting in the small urban centres which have expanded or sprung up in the zone.

In a poor and densely populated country like Egypt, where most of the people are engaged in agriculture and where cultivable land is limited, first priority in any development policy is usually given to agricultural projects for the reclamation of semi-fertile lands and the construction of settlements near the newly opened up areas. A large number of such projects have been executed in Egypt in the last twenty years or so: the cultivation of large areas in the oases of Kharga and Dakhla using subterranean water and the emergence of what is presumptuously called ‘the New Valley’; the reclamation of semi-desert lands in the coastal zone in the Western Desert and the digging of a long canal to carry the much needed water for irrigation from the Nile. The inhabitants of new settlements are usually drawn from the thickly populated provinces and are selected according to age, marital status and number of children. The construction of these settlements is thought of as an effective means for relieving the overcrowded provinces of their excess population as well as developing neglected regions.

Most independent nations in Africa believe that the state is ‘the indispensable agency’ for creating the necessary conditions for rapid socio-economic transformation which will bring about a more equitable distribution of the benefits of development, especially in rural areas. But few countries are agreed on the institutional and organizational structures for bringing this about.

Urban planning cannot be conceived in isolation: rural development is also essential for solving urban problems (Trabelsi 1978). Nor can rural development be achieved without an accompanying urban development policy and both must be integrated into a framework of regional development planning, itself part of the national social development plan (Trabelsi 1979). The modern conception is of a region evolving in an organised space around at least a second order town as a pole of development.

The 1970–4 Kenya Development Plan designated four levels of centres to stimulate rural development: urban centres as the main commercial centres for an entire district, mostly district headquarters though some like Kajiado, Narok and Kitui have not been so designated; rural centres to serve a population of at least 40,000; market centres to serve populations of about 15,000; and local centres to cater for populations of at least 5,000. Thirty six urban centres, 140 rural centres, 231 market and 600 local centres were identified (see Kabwegyere n.d.: esp. ch. 6).

This paper examines the role of the small urban center in promoting rural development through an analysis of two cases, one West African and the other North African. Kita (Mali) and Testour (Tunisia) are approximately the same size, have something of an urban atmosphere in contrast to their surrounding countryside, and play a roughly analogous role within the political economy of their nations. Both were in single-party states at the time of research; had had French colonialism for about the same period; and have modern institutions that owe something to the French pattern. Both have experienced attempts to build socialism.