Observations on the relevance of the industrial-Urban hypothesis for rural development

Rural development tends to be viewed as a facet of urban development in the sense that rural areas are expected to be recipients of positive urban spill-overs. To that end, two concepts have been formulated: growth centre theory and the Industrial-Urban Hypothesis (IUH). The former has been beset by conceptual problems whereas the simpler IUH has not been tested in a Canadian context. This paper tests the basic IUH proposition that the general level of rural development is an inverse function of urban accessibility. Findings suggest that the IUH is more attuned to the impacts of smaller centres rather than the region's metropolitan centre. However, introduction of an exogenous element based on ethnic variations in rural settlements indicate how socializing factors work to modify the IUH concept.