New Approaches to Economic Challenges in a century of cities

UN Habitat, 2016

The analysis of urban development of the past twenty years presented in this maiden edition of the World Cities Report shows, with compelling evidence, that there are new forms of collaboration and cooperation, planning, governance, finance and learning that can sustain positive change. The Report unequivocally demonstrates that the current urbanization model is unsustainable in many respects. It conveys a clear message that the pattern of urbanization needs to change in order to better respond to the challenges of our time, to address issues such as inequality, climate change, informality, insecurity, and the unsustainable forms of urban expansion. ISBN: 978-92-1-132708-3

2020

Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, 2005

The OECD is a unique forum where the governments of 30 democracies work together to address the economic, social and environmental challenges of globalisation. The OECD is also at the forefront of efforts to understand and to help governments respond to new developments and concerns, such as corporate governance, the information economy and the challenges of an ageing population. The Organisation provides a setting where governments can compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practice and work to co-ordinate domestic and international policies.

Urbanization has been a defining trend in economic development for millennia, but the past two decades have witnessed urbanization at an unprecedented scale and speed. In 2008, for the first time in history, the human race became predominantly urban (Chart 1). By 2025, there will be 37 cities with more than 10 million people in them; only 7 will be in the developed world. This trend is a key part of the economic growth and development narrative. No prosperous nation is predominantly rural, and no urbanized countries are poor. While it is impossible to forecast accurately the path that human history will take under future demographic and environmental change, urbanization is likely to be a key trend during the next half century at least. China is urbanizing at 100 times the scale, and 10 times the speed of the UK. By 2025, there will be more than 600 cities exceeding one million inhabitants. This will not only boost capital stocks through the need of cities for basic infrastructure, but will also contribute to the domestic and global economies through increased consumption of goods and services (Chart 2). This will predominantly benefit those companies exposed to emerging markets which still have room to urbanize further and enjoy a burgeoning middle class. We identify 4 main ways in which urbanization can cause economic growth: improved agricultural productivity as small farms are replaced by larger holdings enabling greater scale economies; the reallocation of labour away from agriculture towards higher productivity manufacturing and service sectors; higher economic growth and consumption due to urban incomes exceeding rural incomes; and greater spill over and scale effects in urban areas. But economic, social and policy changes must accompany new infrastructure if urbanization is to be a success.

Growth and Change, 2008

Working Paper, 2014

There is an emerging consensus that urbanisation is critically important to international development, but considerable confusion over what urbanisation actually is; whether it is accelerating or slowing; whether it should be encouraged or discouraged; and, more generally, what the responses should be. This Working Paper reviews some key conceptual issues and summarises urbanisation trends. It ends with a brief review of urbanisation and sustainable development, concluding that although urbanisation brings serious challenges, attempts to inhibit it through exclusionary policies are likely to be economically, socially and environmentally damaging. Moreover, with the right support urbanisation can become an important element of sustainable development.

Geography Research Forum, 2008

This issue brings together two important areas of research in modern human geography: the investigation of spatial variation and change in cities, and the location and development of economic activity. Urban-economic analysis continues to be a vital and growing area of geography, in large part because the issues addressed within this study area are directly relevant to both the threats and opportunities that face human societies today. Cities are hosts to an ever-increasing proportion of the world’s population, and as such are the prime venues for emerging issues of concern such as overcrowding, economic deprivation, poverty, joblessness, environmental degradation, and diseconomies of scale associated with rapid urban development. At the same time as these unambiguously negative effects have emerged in cities, urban areas have also become focal points for the forces of globalization that have created a world economy that is increasingly interlinked, for good and for ill – in Thomas Friedman’s terms, a “flattening” of the global economic opportunity surface.