This article examines the impact of staple food price controls on the
Tanzanian urban and rural population during the 1970s and 1980s. It
is argued that the objective of government pricing policy was spatial
egalitarianism. Evidence of variable urban food consumption
strategies, the agrarianisation of towns, the rise of parallel marketing
and the slowing of urban growth casts doubt on the relevance of the
urban bias concept to Tanzania and helps to explain the relative ease
with which market liberalisation was introduced.