Road provision and the changing role of towns in west-central Nepal (transport planing)

Outlines the major determinants of changing rural-town relationships. Argues that there has been a steady erosion of self-sufficiency in the hill economy, because of growing population and the failure of production to keep pace. Having shown how a deteriorating environmental and economic situation is associated with a weakening of self-sufficiency, relates this to a shift of the supply of services away from neighbourhood locations in the countryside to fewer urban locations. Road provision is shown to have accelerated the process whereby towns are ceasing to be craft centres and trading points for export products, becoming merely distribution centres for foreign goods.