POPULATION-DENSITY, URBAN CENTRALITY, AND AGRICULTURAL INTENSIFICATION IN JORDAN

This paper explores the relationship between population growth, agricu ltural production, and urban development. Ongoing debate in the litera ture regarding the relationship between population and economic develo pment is restricted by the limited availability of time series data an d the difficulty of evaluating causality using cross-sectional data. T his analysis uses the special case of Jordan with its massive refugee flows to evaluate the influence of a sudden and exogenous change in po pulation in urban areas on the intensification of agricultural product ion. Spearman Rank Order correlations are calculated from time series data to show that the districts which experienced the most rapid popul ation growth and increases in population density also exhibited the la rgest increases in agricultural intensity. Cross-sectional analysis in which measures of agricultural intensification were predicted by popu lation density and urbanization factors reveals a significant interact ion between density and urban centrality, where 'centrality' is an ind icator of the accessibility of urban goods to rural communities. The r esults suggest that population density has a strongly positive effect on agricultural intensity in areas with few urban goods and services a vailable, whereas the influence of population density on agricultural intensity is substantially reduced in areas with a greater diversity o f urban goods and services.