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Author: Kirsten Hommann
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464814058
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 59
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Book Description
For African cities to grow economically as they have grown in size, they must create productive environments to attract investments, increase economic efficiency, and create livable environments that prevent urban costs from rising with increased population densification. What are the central obstacles that prevent African cities and towns from becoming sustainable engines of economic growth and prosperity? Among the most critical factors that limit the growth and livability of urban areas are land markets, investments in public infrastructure and assets, and the institutions to enable both. To unleash the potential of African cities and towns for delivering services and employment in a livable and environmentally friendly environment, a sequenced approach is needed to reform institutions and policies and to target infrastructure investments. This book lays out three foundations that need fixing to guide cities and towns throughout Sub-Saharan Africa on their way to productivity and livability.
Author: Kirsten Hommann
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464814058
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 59
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Book Description
For African cities to grow economically as they have grown in size, they must create productive environments to attract investments, increase economic efficiency, and create livable environments that prevent urban costs from rising with increased population densification. What are the central obstacles that prevent African cities and towns from becoming sustainable engines of economic growth and prosperity? Among the most critical factors that limit the growth and livability of urban areas are land markets, investments in public infrastructure and assets, and the institutions to enable both. To unleash the potential of African cities and towns for delivering services and employment in a livable and environmentally friendly environment, a sequenced approach is needed to reform institutions and policies and to target infrastructure investments. This book lays out three foundations that need fixing to guide cities and towns throughout Sub-Saharan Africa on their way to productivity and livability.
Author: Somik V. Lall
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 9781464810442
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Cities in Sub-Saharan Africa are experiencing rapid population growth. Yet their economic growth has not kept pace. Why? One factor might be low capital investment, due in part to Africa's relative poverty: Other regions have reached similar stages of urbanization at higher per capita GDP. This study, however, identifies a deeper reason: African cities are closed to the world. Compared with other developing cities, cities in Africa produce few goods and services for trade on regional and international markets To grow economically as they are growing in size, Africa's cities must open their doors to the world. They need to specialize in manufacturing, along with other regionally and globally tradable goods and services. And to attract global investment in tradables production, cities must develop scale economies, which are associated with successful urban economic development in other regions. Such scale economies can arise in Africa, and they will--if city and country leaders make concerted efforts to bring agglomeration effects to urban areas. Today, potential urban investors and entrepreneurs look at Africa and see crowded, disconnected, and costly cities. Such cities inspire low expectations for the scale of urban production and for returns on invested capital. How can these cities become economically dense--not merely crowded? How can they acquire efficient connections? And how can they draw firms and skilled workers with a more affordable, livable urban environment? From a policy standpoint, the answer must be to address the structural problems affecting African cities. Foremost among these problems are institutional and regulatory constraints that misallocate land and labor, fragment physical development, and limit productivity. As long as African cities lack functioning land markets and regulations and early, coordinated infrastructure investments, they will remain local cities: closed to regional and global markets, trapped into producing only locally traded goods and services, and limited in their economic growth.
Author: Catherine Farvacque-Vitkovi?
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821358154
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 285
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Book Description
There has been a dramatic demographic shift from rural areas to cities in sub-Saharan African countries over the last few decades. This continuing urbanisation trend has created new challenges for local governments in terms of managing urban services, since over half of the city streets in these countries have no names or addresses, and the problem is particularly acute in the poorest neighbourhoods. This publication examines the use of street addressing initiatives to address this problem, giving information on current and future applications, considering examples of use in many African countries, and setting out a methodological guide for implementing such initiatives.
Author: Arti Grover
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464817944
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 314
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Book Description
Place matters for productivity and prosperity. Myriad factors support a successful place, including not only the hard infrastructure such as roads, but also the softer elements such as worker skills, entrepreneurial ability, and well-functioning institutions. History suggests that prosperous places tend to persist, while “left-behind” regions—or those hurt by climatic, technological, or commercial shocks—struggle to catch up. This division gives rise to demands to “do something” about the subsequent spatial inequality. Such pressures often result in costly spatially targeted policies with disappointing outcomes because of a lack of analysis of the underlying barriers to growth and structural transformation and a fair appraisal of the possibility of overcoming them.The latest volume of the World Bank Productivity Project series, Place, Productivity, and Prosperity: Revisiting Spatially Targeted Policies for Regional Development makes three broad contributions. First, it provides new analytical and empirical insights into the three drivers of economic geography—agglomeration economies, migration, and distance—and the way in which these drivers interact. Second, it argues that these forces are playing out differently in developing countries than they have in advanced economies: urbanization is not accompanied by structural transformation, leaving cities crowded and accruing all the negative aspects of urbanization without being concentrated productively. Long-term amelioration of poverty in lagging regions requires advancing the overall national agenda of structural change and productivity growth. Third, it provides a heuristic framework with which to inform policy makers’ assessments of place-based policy proposals, helping them identify the regions where policy is likely to have an impact and those that would remain nonviable. The framework enables governments to clarify the implications of various policy options; to think critically about design priorities, including necessary complementary policies; and to navigate the implementation challenges.“This is an extremely welcome book. Three experts lay out the principles behind spatially targeted policy and the experience of countries using such policies. A must-read for anyone interested in spatial inequality and policy to address it.”Anthony J. VenablesProfessor of Economics, University of Manchester, and Research Director, The Productivity Institute“Delivering better livelihoods for all requires tapping into the economic potential of every place, including those losing out or lagging behind. This, however, cannot be done effectively without a sound theoretical and empirical framework. Place, Productivity, and Prosperity is the right book to look for such a framework.”Andrés Rodríguez-PosePrincesa de Asturias Chair and Professor of Economic Geography, London School of Economics
Author: Peter Evans
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520935977
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292
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Book Description
The sprawling cities of the developing world are vibrant hubs of economic growth, but they are also increasingly ecologically unsustainable and, for ordinary citizens, increasingly unlivable. Pollution is rising, affordable housing is decreasing, and green space is shrinking. Since three-quarters of those joining the world's population during the next century will live in Third World cities, making these urban areas more livable is one of the key challenges of the twenty-first century. This book explores the linked issues of livelihood and ecological sustainability in major cities of the developing and transitional world. Livable Cities? identifies important strategies for collective solutions by showing how political alliances among local communities, nongovernmental organizations, and public agencies can help ordinary citizens live better lives.
Author: Alain Bertaud
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262550970
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 429
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Book Description
An argument that operational urban planning can be improved by the application of the tools of urban economics to the design of regulations and infrastructure. Urban planning is a craft learned through practice. Planners make rapid decisions that have an immediate impact on the ground—the width of streets, the minimum size of land parcels, the heights of buildings. The language they use to describe their objectives is qualitative—“sustainable,” “livable,” “resilient”—often with no link to measurable outcomes. Urban economics, on the other hand, is a quantitative science, based on theories, models, and empirical evidence largely developed in academic settings. In this book, the eminent urban planner Alain Bertaud argues that applying the theories of urban economics to the practice of urban planning would greatly improve both the productivity of cities and the welfare of urban citizens. Bertaud explains that markets provide the indispensable mechanism for cities’ development. He cites the experience of cities without markets for land or labor in pre-reform China and Russia; this “urban planners’ dream” created inefficiencies and waste. Drawing on five decades of urban planning experience in forty cities around the world, Bertaud links cities’ productivity to the size of their labor markets; argues that the design of infrastructure and markets can complement each other; examines the spatial distribution of land prices and densities; stresses the importance of mobility and affordability; and critiques the land use regulations in a number of cities that aim at redesigning existing cities instead of just trying to alleviate clear negative externalities. Bertaud concludes by describing the new role that joint teams of urban planners and economists could play to improve the way cities are managed.
Author: Julia Bird
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 146481239X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 205
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Book Description
A unique strategic opportunity beckons Bangladesh. Dhaka, the economic powerhouse of the country,stands on the cusp of a dramatic transformation that could make it much more prosperous and livable.Today, Dhaka is prone to flooding, congestion, and messiness, to a point that is clogging its growth. Buttoward its east, where two major highway corridors will one day intersect, is a vast expanse of largely ruralland. And much of it is within 6 kilometers of the most valuable parts of the city.The time to make the most of this eastward opportunity is now. Many parts of East Dhaka are already beingdeveloped in a haphazard way at an alarmingly rapid pace. Private developers are buying land and filling itwith sand so they can build and sell new houses and apartments. Canals and ponds are disappearing, andthe few narrow roads crossing the area are being encroached by construction. This spontaneousdevelopment could soon make East Dhaka look like the messy western part of the city, and retrofitting it laterwill be more difficult and costlier than properly planning and developing it now.Toward Great Dhaka: A New Urban Development Paradigm Eastward seeks to analyze how the opportunity ofEast Dhaka could be realized. Using state-of-the-art modeling techniques, the study simulates population,housing, economic activity, and commuting times across the 266 unions that constitute Greater Dhaka. Itdoes so under various scenarios for the development of East Dhaka, but always assessing the implicationsfor the entire city.The simulations suggest that pursuing a strategic approach to the development of East Dhaka would makeGreater Dhaka a much more productive and livable city than continuing with business as usual. Based oncurrent trends, Greater Dhaka would have a population of 25 million in 2035 and an income per capita ofUS$8,000 at 2015 prices. However, embracing a strategic approach would add 5 million people to the city.And, it would be a more productive city, with nearly 1.8 million more jobs and an income per capita of morethan US$9,200 at 2015 prices, enough to put Dhaka on the map of global cities.
Author: Ivo Imparato
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 9780821353707
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 520
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Book Description
The UN currently estimates that there are about 837 million urban slum dwellers worldwide, and this figure is likely to rise to 1.5 billion by 2020 if current trends are not reversed. This book offers five geographically and institutionally diverse case studies from Latin America, where some of the longest-running and most successful programmes in this field have been conducted. These programmes, involving a wide variety of funding arrangements and agencies, demonstrate the positive impact that community participation and people-oriented service solutions can have on slum upgrading efforts in low income urban areas.
Author: Stanisław Mazur
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000927547
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 218
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Book Description
The aim of this publication is to look in depth at depopulation - a trend that is affecting an increasing number of cities worldwide. It has recently become a critical issue with a range of detrimental social, economic, spatial, and financial consequences. However, attempts by central and local governments to combat depopulation have yet to yield satisfactory results. Compelling evidence suggests that one of the reasons for this state of affairs is that the role of local (urban) leadership in devising solutions, mobilizing resources, and creating networks to address the problem has been underestimated. Moreover, according to the authors of this monograph, there is a significant positive correlation between urban leadership and the ability to effectively respond to and counteract the negative effects of depopulation. Without an understanding of the impact of urban leadership on the ability to address the negative consequences of urban depopulation, it is impossible to pursue effective public policies in this regard. This book presents a novel approach to explaining the ability of cities to combat depopulation through the prism of urban leadership quality. It compares domestic empirical research findings with international case studies, and offers a comprehensive review of valuable practices to counter urban shrinkage and depopulation, from both academic and practical perspectives. Further, the book provides a new interpretation of the processes associated with these trends. The magnitude of the phenomenon in question, the negative spatial, economic, and social consequences, as well as the relatively low effectiveness of policies aimed at its mitigation, will make this book an invaluable guide for researchers, and students from a wide range of disciplines including urban studies, economics, public management, leadership studies, local government, climate change and energy transition and urban movements. The audience will also comprise of policymakers and urban experts such as sociologists, planners, social geographers, economists, and architects.
Author: Patrick M. Condon
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597268208
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 215
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Book Description
Questions of how the design of cities can respond to the challenge of climate change dominate the thoughts of urban planners and designers across the U.S. and Canada. With admirable clarity, Patrick Condon responds to these questions. He addresses transportation, housing equity, job distribution, economic development, and ecological systems issues and synthesizes his knowledge and research into a simple-to-understand set of urban design recommendations. No other book so clearly connects the form of our cities to their ecological, economic, and social consequences. No other book takes on this breadth of complex and contentious issues and distills them down to such convincing and practical solutions.
