The Relevance of 'Urban Bias' Theory for Bangladesh

One of the recent attempts at theorising the causes of rural poverty has pinpointed ‘urban bias’ as the villain. In this paper we try to point out the flaws of ‘urban bias’ theory as put forward by Lipton (1978). We produce evidence from Bangladesh to show that some of the propositions of Lipton’s theory do not have general empirical validity. The objective of this endeavour is to suggest that ‘urban bias’ is not the only reason of rural proverty and its removal in the ways suggested by Lipton may not provide a solution to the problem.