• poverty can occur in core
    • Pine Ridge
      • 60% in poverty
      • per capita income of 6000
    • rich coastal China vs poor interior provinces
  • many political and social consequences of wealth gap
  • periphery can have islands of development
    • caused by government policy

Role of Governments

  • tariffs, trade agreements, taxation, land ownership rules, environmental regulations -> distribution of wealth
  • Hurrican Katrina destroyed Ninth Ward in New Orleans
    • government built levies and allowed settlement in flood-prone areas
    • government had to clean up
  • rural Wisconsin vs Appalachia
    • Wisconsin: family farmers have great education, mechanized farm
    • Appalachia: handscrabble farming, no education, basic farms
    • contrast due to government policy (land grant uni, etc..)
      • wealthy get wealthier
  • government policy can alleviate uneven development
    • Appalachian Regional Comission in 1965 invested heavily in Appalachia
  • US quotas -> countries buy/sell their capacity to export to US to corporations
    • Sri Lanka sells their high quota and cheap labor

Islands of Development

  • governments prioritize capital cities
    • no benefit, just showing off
    • creates primate cities
  • some countries have new capital cities to separate from colonial past
    • Nigeria: Lagos -> ethnically neutral Abuja
    • Pakistan: Karachi -> Islamabad (historically important interior/north)
    • Brazil: RdJ -> Brasilia to focus on sparsely populated, poor interior
  • can be created by corporations who focus on certain cities
    • Gabon in Africa
      • Elf and Shell
      • “oil city”

Creating Growth in Periphery of the Periphery

  • NGOs try helping the super impoverished
    • almost like a separate state
    • 20,000 NGOs in Bangladesh
    • microcredit programs in South Asian and South America give loans to poor, especially women
      • alter gender balance