Rapid urbanization processes Ecuador (City of Guayaquil and coastal region of Manabi province): the coffee network. PhD research KULeuven.

This research on rapid urbanization processes in Latin America links two types of analysis dealing with the production, trade and consumption of coffee. The idea is to unravel dynamics of economic and political networks of a global good and understand how they influence spatial development. Using the Global Commodity Chain Analysis as methodology, a first empirical research on rural-urban patterns in a coffee producing area is brought forward. Based on original field research data, the interaction between local coffee production & trade and the changing spatial relations between rural and urban areas is studied.

A second analysis tries to examine the spatial consequences of the actual and historical driving economic and political forces of the global coffee market. By linking the results of both analysis, and thus local, regional and global spatial structures, more traditional global economic networks appear to have a very strong spatially structuring capacity. Therefore, the spatial impact of so called new global networking processes vis à vis historically existing spatially differentiated production-consumption structures seems too often overestimated.

Joris SCHEERS conducted this research, titled ‘Coffee and the scent of the city’ as part of his PhD at KULeuven during the period 1990-2002. The results have relevance for planners, showing how spatial developments are driven by social and economic dynamics, how different scales interact and how specific research tools can be applied.