Despite the prevailing presence of exploitation of the rural by the urban in present day Zaire, it is still too early to pretend to put forward a precise definition and measurement of this exploitation process, especially as far as Zairian small urban centers are concerned. No systematic field research has so far been undertaken on these small centers.

However, this study will show that in south-eastern Zaire the social environment of small urban centers is too suffocating to allow them to play a positive role in the development of the rural masses. Some stifling mechanisms are encountered in the small urban centers, which impede the efficient circulation of goods and services between the centers and the rural areas and exacerbate the exploitation of the rural people by the small urban centers to the greatest advantage of the urban elite and of world capitalism.

The geographical area of south-eastern Zaire, corresponding to the administrative Region of Shaba (formerly Katanga), seems a suitable field for the study of small urban centers. It constitutes, together with the economic pole of Kinshasa and the administrative Region of Bas-Zaire, one of the most industrialized areas in Zaire. Copper mining industry—including production of secondary minerals such as cobalt, zinc, iron, gold, platinum, cadmium, germanium, rhenium—is predominant in southern Shaba. The Gecamines alone supplies the Zaire state with 75 percent of its foreign exchange. It employs a personnel of more than 300,000 units and carries on its different productive activities on a concession of 20,000 sq km. Its extractive and service activities are concentrated in cities (Lubumbashi, Likasi, Kolwesi) and in small urban centers with populations growing from year to year (Kipushi, Kambove, Kwadingusha).