Understanding rural-urban transitions in the Global South through Peri-Urban Turbulence

Much previous research has problematised the use of a binary urban-rural distinction to describe human settlement patterns in and around cities. This paper presents a framework that conceptualises rural-urban transition through the prism of shifts in natural, engineered and institutional infrastructure, in order to explain the processes of rapid change and the dip in service provision often found in peri-urban areas in the Global South. We draw on examples related to the provision of water and sanitation to illustrate the theory and discuss its implications for future research on the peri-urban.