Moving Forward
- Getting urbanization right will be essential in ensuring that it contributes to the World Bank’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity.
- With most of East Asia’s people living in non-urban areas, rapid urbanization is likely to continue for decades, requiring proactive policies to provide land, housing, and services for the new urban residents
- The report emphasizes the important role of policy makers at the national and municipal levels in ensuring that urbanization proceeds in an economically efficient, sustainable and inclusive manner so that poor people can benefit.
- Urban planning needs to match physical expansion with access to jobs, affordable housing and shopping, public transportation, and health and education services to ensure equal opportunity for disadvantaged communities.
- Environmental impacts and risks are a major concern. The report notes that urban expansion brings increased consumption of fossil fuels that contribute to climate change, while a lack of planning can result in poor migrants settling on land prone to natural disasters such as flooding and earthquakes.
- Fragmentation requires a new model of metropolitan governance, and strategies can include in some cases consolidation of authority. In other cases, strengthening local municipalities may be needed to offset too much central authority as part of a tradeoff. Resolving the fragmented management will involve tackling the logistical and political complexities of forging multi-jurisdictional coalitions among participants that may have conflicting priorities.
To encourage further research on urbanization, the World Bank launched a two-track competition based on this report:
- Data visualization competition: data enthusiasts were invited to produce innovative visualizations based on our new urban dataset. Amsterdam-based data scientist Nadieh Bremer claimed the first place for her project The Impact of Millions of People on the Move Towards Cities in East Asia. To learn more about the results of the competition, you can read Nadieh's blog post on her project, and take a look at all other entries submitted by participants.
- Call for research proposals based on report findings: 50 proposals were submitted, and 10 participants were selected to write papers. The authors of the three winning papers will have the opportunity to present their work at the World Bank headquarters in Washington DC.
Which of the following best explains the growth in population and housing shown in the image and the census data?
Which of the following best explains the growth in population and housing shown in the image and the census data? The lower cost of land farther from the CBD makes it affordable to build single-family homes in zones 4 and 5 for middle-income and high-income residents who desire to move into less crowded areas.
Which of the following best explains a geographic characteristic shared by megacities in the global periphery?
Which of the following best explains a geographic characteristic shared by megacities in the global periphery? Megacities demonstrate unplanned growth patterns and often contain squatter settlements.
Which of the following best describes the difference in urban transportation issues?
Which of the following best describes the difference in urban transportation issues faced by cities in different parts of the world? The relatively low population density of North American cities encourages automobile use, sprawl, and traffic congestion.
Which of the following best explains what the concentric zone model?
Which of the following best explains what the concentric zone model and bid-rent curve illustrate about patterns of urban areas? Together they show how land prices rise exponentially closer to the central business district.