--- James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Was I unclear? I was talking about the migration of
> rural populations to
> towns in the developing world.
[WS:] But that is NOT what he is arguing, AFAICT. If I understand him correctly, his argument is that you cannot look at the migration figures alone, you need to consider the land use as well. For example, if you have 100 hectares of arble land divided into 100 subsistence farmers, and then 99 of those farmers sell their land and move to the city, whilke the remaining one guy you bought all that land still cultivates it - you will have a large migration figure and perhaps depopulation of the village, but no depopulation of the land which is still used for farming. Only if you convert that farm land to another non-human use, you can claim depopulation of land.
Wojtek
>
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