Town and Country in the Middle East

A systematic sociological study of town and country in the Middle East has long been overdue. In this book, Chaichian examines the process of dependent urbanization in Iran and Egypt related to each country's unique colonial history and dependence on a constantly changing global economy since the early nineteenth century. Using historical data, he argues that development of dependent economies has led to displacement of rural population and their migration to major urban centers such as Tehran in Iran, and Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt. However, divergent colonial interests such as extraction and production of oil in Iran and cultivation of cotton in Egypt for the world markets have created different patterns of rural-urban migration, urban hierarchies and employment structures particularly within the urban informal economy sector (petty commodity production). The findings of this study also indicate that by the mid-1970s Iran and Egypt were fully incorporated into the global economy, but in various degrees have since resisted the systemic demands of the new phase of globalization that requires open and fluid borders for utilization of labor, capital investment, and transfer of information. The 1979 revolution in Iran and persistent instability in Egypt, particularly in urban areas, are cited as signs of this resistance to the new phase of globalization.