COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE URBAN-RURAL CLASSIFICATION OF THE DISTRICTS IN COSTA RICA

Abstract

The rural and urban classification in Costa Rica has been a dichotomous practice that divides urban from the “rest”, it divides urban from the agricultural and remote spaces.
The Costa Rican institutions, with a need to classify space as urban or rural, have created or modified the methodology to carry this dichotomous practice based on their own needs, their specialization and their benefits. As a result of it, when a comparison of space classification is made into rural or urban (mainly used for districts), the results between institutions are dissimilar and difficult to compare and standardize. A consequence of this is the creation of incoherent public policy and concrete actions where the institutionality does not understand, in the same way, the space typology, its characteristics and its dynamics. This work shows the current differences among some institutions (the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses, the Institute of Rural Development, the National Institute of Housing and Urbanism, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) in their urban-rural classification of districts and consequently, their understanding of spaces in the urban-rural continuum and the socio-cultural characteristics of its habitants.