Reducing the disparity between rural and urban areas

By Yihang Yan

The Freedom Rides which were evoking widespread social disorder and racial divergence sent shock waves through American society. Facing lots of violence and danger on their behalf, freedom riders impressed blacks throughout the south who formed the major power of civil right movement. The history of civil right movement shows the importance of transportation to people of color. In contemporary society, transportation is also closely related to the standard of living and rights of citizens.

In the article Back of the Bus: Mass Transit, Race, and Inequality, the authors (Andrea Bernstein, Nancy Solomon, Laura Yuen and Casey Miner) revealed the fact that transportation system lagged far behind in rural places and people had to walk in most of time. They also mentioned that Robert Bullard, director of the Environmental Justice Center at Clark Atlanta University said “Public Transit was equated with black people and poor people and crime and poverty.” However, even today, the equity of transportation in rural and urban area is difficult to achieve. Building excellent public transit is an indispensable process of poverty alleviation.

According to recent Census estimates, less than 5% of urban work trips were made by public transit; but this varies significantly by race and location. Minorities are less likely to own cars than whites and are more often dependent on public transportation. For example, during the period of Hurricane Katrina, many African Americans could not evacuate due to lake of transportation^<1>. This tragedy reminded us to pay attention to the people and the places which are severely affected by transportation deficiency. Development of transportation in rural area cannot keep pace with the increasing demands of people in various aspects, such as cultural life, medical care and religious services. Maybe people living in the cities cannot imagine the truth that some people even are unable to get to shop for basic necessities in fast and effective way. Lack of accessibility to urgent medical help leads to greater injuries and deaths and lack of accessibility to fresh food leads to different kinds of health problems. If things are allowed to go on like this, the gap between rich and poor, urban and rural area is going to be widening. As a result, transportation development in rural areas really plays an important role in alleviating poverty and improving standard of living for needy people.

At the end of article, the authors of Back of the Bus thought we should try to avoid a form of 21^st century segregation that some people run the risk of having almost a push out of low-income, minority communities away from our inner cities. Besides better transportation facilities in rural area as I mentioned above, integration of rural and urban public transport is also a necessary and useful policy in economic development and poverty alleviation.

Basically, this linkage is trying to create an equal environment for resident in both rural and urban areas. According to the government report in China, cities like Jiangsu and Chengdu actively promote interconnection and increase the share of public transport between inner and outside of city^<2>. In the same time, government also encourages people in rural area to integrate into urban life by providing more convenient and complete public transit so that all residents of the city, no matter farmers or people of other races, can move freely and have equal access to basic public services and social welfare. The end of 2002, the National Highway mileage reached 252 million km, highway mileage 1.758 million kilometers, the development of rural roadway length to 130 million km, the national total 1.409 million passenger operations, township roads pass rate of 99.4% and the rate of pass bus reached 98%, administrative villages, highways rate of 92.5%, bus pass rate of 81.9% ^<3>. The integrated development of urban and rural transport is able to make more rural residents move in and enjoy the same rights and public service as original urban residents.

The equity of transportation cannot be achieved in the short time but it undoubtedly promotes the race equity and linkage among different region. We should try to make the best use of public transportation to contribute the alleviation of disparity between rural and urban.

Work cited:

<1> Poverty & race (Thomas W. Sanchez & Marc Brenman)

http://www.prrac.org/newsletters/julaug2010.pdf

<2> Urban Transportation in China: Current State of Reform and Future Trends (Lu Huapu)

http://www.ltaacademy.gov.sg/doc/J09Nov-p07Lu_TransportInChina.pdf

<3> Content of rural and urban road passenger transport integration and development of meaningful

http://eng.hi138.com/?i161453#

<4> Back of the Bus: Mass Transit, Race, and Inequality (Andrea Bernstein, Nancy Solomon, Laura Yuen and Casey Miner)