As the economic geography of Zimbabwe reconfigures following land reform, the growth of small towns continues to be an important phenomenon. No longer is economic growth concentrated in the metropolitan areas where industrial areas have declined, but it’s in small towns. Some of these have only recently received ‘town’ status, but many are booming, with new forms of growth driven by agriculture (often in combination with mining) often from the land reform areas.
Since 2000 we have been tracking the changes in three small towns in different parts of the country: Mvurwi in Mazowe district in Mashonaland Central, Chatsworth in Gutu district in Masvingo province and Maphisa in Matobo district in Matabeleland South (see map). This is the first of three blogs on the theme of small towns, following up from an earlier blog series and a paper published in 2021.
This article is from Zimbabweland, a blog written by IDS Research Fellow Ian Scoones. Zimbabweland focuses on issues related to rural livelihoods and land reform in Zimbabwe.
