The government's rural and urban development policies have failed to pull distressed areas out of the doldrums, a Statistics SA survey has revealed. In 2001, government earmarked 13 specific rural areas - later increased to 18 - and eight urban townships for accelerated development under the Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme and the Urban Renewal Programme.These were areas historically neglected during the apartheid era.Using data from Census 2001 and Census 2011, the Quest for Nodal Development survey report released by statistician-general Pali Lehohla yesterday found the policies brought no intended relief to these areas.The survey found that, on average, the nodes were doing poorly on education, employment, living conditions and poverty compared to the non-nodes in 2001."Ten years later, in 2011, the report found that the nodes were still doing poorly compared to non-nodes. This indicates that, despite the implementation programmes, the nodes did not catch up with the non-nodes," the report noted.The rural nodes were selected from the poorest parts of the country characterised by inadequate infrastructure, poor communications, poor access to basic services, poor living conditions, unemployment, lack of adequate facilities and predominantly occupied by black people...