This symposium seeks a better understanding of factors causing the rural-urban divide and their responses to globalization. Regional and international economists have paid increasing attention to the possible asymmetric effects of trade reform and other globalizing forces on a country's spatial distribution of production factors and their returns. For instance, does trade reform increase or decrease concentration of economic activity in urban areas? Has the decline in information, communication and transport costs aggravated or alleviated inter-regional economic differences? Rapid growth experiences in the last few decades in Korea, Mexico, China, Brazil, and India are accompanied by stark regional trends within each of these economies. With continued globalization and advances in information technology, we address the economic differences between rural and urban regions from every continent, the status and sustainability of under-developed regions, and policy options to mitigate the rural-urban gap, especially that part not attributed to the quality of rural life.

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