Access to services is often worst in suburban areas

The world we live in is often divided using a binary urban-rural distinction, despite a huge gradient of settlement patterns in and around cities—ranging from urban to the most remote rural areas. New research led through a joint U.K.-India research project and published in Nature Sustainability, considers urbanization by looking at shifts in natural, engineered and institutional infrastructure. The study, focused on the Global South, suggests that rapid change in suburban (termed “peri-urban”) areas results in people living in those areas having a poorer quality of life than people living in urban and rural areas.