Many developing countries display remarkably high degrees of urban concentration that are incommensurate with their levels of urbanization. The cost of excessively high levels of urban concentration can be very high in terms of overpopulation, congestion, and productivity growth.
... See More + One strand of the theoretical literature suggests that such high levels of concentration may be the result of restrictive trade policies that trigger forces of agglomeration. Another strand of the literature, however, points out that trade liberalization itself may exacerbate urban concentration by favoring the further growth of those large urban centers that have better access to international markets. The empirical basis for judging this question has been weak so far; in the existing literature, trade policies are poorly measured (or are not measured, as when trade volumes are used spuriously). Here, new disaggregated tariff measures are used to empirically test the hypothesis. A treatment-and-control analysis of pre- versus post-liberalization performance of the cities is also employed in liberalizing and non-liberalizing countries. It is found that (controlling for the largest cities that have ports and, thus, have better access to external markets) liberalizing trade leads to a reduction in urban concentration.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS6913 JUN 01, 2014
This study explores the complex process of transit and land-use integration in rapidly growing cities in developing countries. It first identifies barriers to and opportunities for effective coordination of transit infrastructure and urban development.
... See More + It then recommends a set of policies and implementation measures for overcoming these barriers and exploiting these opportunities. Well-integrated transit and land development create urban forms and spaces that reduce the need for travel by private motorized vehicles. Areas with good access to public transit and well-designed urban spaces that are walkable and bikeable become highly attractive places for people to live, work, learn, play, and interact. Such environments enhance a city's economic competitiveness, reduce local pollution and global greenhouse gas emissions, and promote inclusive development. These goals are at the heart of transit-oriented development (TOD), an urban form that is increasingly important to sustainable urban futures. This book uses a case study approach. It draws lessons from global best-case examples of transit-oriented metropolises that have direct relevance to cities in developing countries and elsewhere that are currently investing in bus rapid transit (BRT) and other high-capacity transit systems. It also reports the results of two original in-depth case studies of rapidly growing and motorizing cities that introduced extended BRT systems: Ahmedabad, India and Bogota, Colombia. Two shorter case studies enrich the understanding of factors that are critical to transforming cities with transit.
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Urbanization deserves urgent attention from policy makers, academics, entrepreneurs, and social reformers of all stripes. Nothing else will create as many opportunities for social and economic progress.
... See More + The urbanization project began roughly 1,000 years after the transition from the Pleistocene to the milder and more stable Holocene interglacial. In 2010, the urban population in developing countries stood at 2.5 billion. The developing world can accommodate the urban population growth and declining urban density in many ways. The most important citywide projects -- successes like New York and Shenzhen -- show even more clearly how influential human intention can be. The developing world can accommodate the urban population growth and declining urban density in many ways. One is to have a threefold increase in the average population of its existing cities and a six fold increase in their average built-out area. Another, which will leave the built-out area of existing cities unchanged, will be to develop 625 new cities of 10 million people -- 500 new cities to accommodate the net increase in the urban population and another 125 to accommodate the 1.25 billion people who will have to leave existing cities as average density falls by half.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS6874 MAY 01, 2014
This paper focuses on three interrelated questions on urbanization and the geography of development. First, although we herald cities with their industrial bases as "engines of growth," does industrialization in fact drive urbanization?
... See More + While such relationships appear in the data, the process is not straightforward. Among developing countries, changes in income or industrialization correlate only weakly with changes in urbanization. This suggests that policy and institutional factors may also influence the urbanization process. In fact, the relationship between industrialization and urbanization is absent in Sub-Saharan Africa. Second, do development policies have a big-city bias and, if so, what does this imply for growth and inequality? Intelligent public infrastructure investment inevitably involves picking winners. One hopes that such choices are based on market indicators, such as where industry is starting to agglomerate and where there are clear needs. Yet governments seem to favor the biggest cities which in turn draw firms and migrants to these cities. To try to avoid excessive in-migration and oversized, congested cities, favored cities might adopt policies that make living conditions for migrants more unpleasant. This can result in increased inequality and social tension. Finally, the paper examines city sizes and city-size distributions. Factors determining both aspects are complex and poorly understood. It is hard to be proscriptive about either individual city sizes or overall city-size distributions. The best policies strengthen institutions in the relevant markets so that market forces can move the economy toward better outcomes.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS6877 MAY 01, 2014
Cities emerge from the spatial concentration of people and economic activities. But spatial concentration is not enough; the economic viability of cities depends on people, ideas, and goods to move rapidly across the urban area.
... See More + This constant movement within dense cities creates wealth but also various degrees of unpleasantness and misery that economists call negative externalities, such as congestion, pollution, and environmental degradation. In addition, the poorest inhabitants of many cities are often unable to afford a minimum-size dwelling with safe water and sanitation, as if the wealth created by cities was part of a zero-sum game where the poor will be at the losing end. The main challenge for urban planners and economists is reducing cities' negative externalities without destroying the wealth created by spatial concentration. To do that, they must plan and design infrastructure and regulations while leaving intact the self-organizing created by land and labor markets. The balance between letting markets work and correcting market externalities through infrastructure investment and regulation is difficult to achieve. Too often, planners play sorcerer's apprentice when dealing with markets whose functioning they poorly understand. The role of the urban planner is then, first, to better understand the complex interaction between market forces and government interventions, infrastructure investment and regulation, and second, to design these interventions based on precise quantitative objectives. Each city's priorities would depend on its history, circumstances, and political environment. But maintaining mobility and keeping land affordable remains the main urban planning objective common to all cities.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS6870 MAY 01, 2014
The objective of the Armenia Trade Promotion and Quality Infrastructure Project is to strengthen the enabling environment and firm capacity to increase private investments and exports.
... See More + The project's direct beneficiaries include both existing and potential exporters, who will benefit from an improved quality of programs and services provided under a more efficient trade promotion and quality system. Negative impacts include: loss of asset, loss of land acquisition, loss of household property, loss of structure, loss of trees and crops, loss of income, and loss of livelihood. Mitigation measures include: compensation in cash for all residential, commercial or other structures will be paid at replacement cost of these structures, without any depreciation of the structure and without deduction for salvageable materials; project affected persons, or PAPs will be provided full assistance for transportation of personal belongings, household inventory and salvaged material, and will be given a relocation allowance in addition to the compensation at replacement cost of their houses, lands and other properties; in cases where community infrastructure such as schools, factories, water sources, roads, sewage systems, electrical supply, or other community resources such as a woodlot or pasture is lost, this will be replaced at no cost to the community; and fees and taxes on land and/or house transfers will be waived or otherwise fees and taxes will be included in a compensation package for land and/or house. The competent government authorities will give preferential treatment to PAPs reconstructing their houses on their own, and support them in obtaining the necessary property titles and official certificates.
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This paper examines the effects of urbanization on development and growth. It begins with a labor market perspective and emphasizes the importance of agglomeration economies, both static and dynamic.
... See More + It then argues that more productive jobs in cities do not exist in a void and underscores the importance of job and firm dynamics. In turn, these dynamics are shaped by the broader characteristics of urban systems. A number of conclusions are drawn. First, agglomeration effects are quantitatively important and pervasive. Second, the productive advantage of large cities is constantly eroded and must be sustained by new job creation and innovation. Third, this process of creative destruction in cities, which is fundamental for aggregate growth, is determined in part by the characteristics of urban systems and broader institutional features. The paper highlights important differences between developing countries and more advanced economies. A major challenge for developing countries is to reinforce the role of their urban systems as drivers of economic growth.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS6818 MAR 01, 2014
The development objective of the Chongqing Small Towns Water Environment Management Project for China is to reduce flood risks and improve wastewater services in selected counties of the Chongqing municipality.
... See More + Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: (1) the resettlement subsidy to under 16 years will be fully paid to the individual; and a certain portion of that for one aged 16 years or above will be used to pay basic endowment insurance premiums for urban enterprise employees voluntarily, and the remainder will be paid to the individual for production and livelihood restoration; (2) the owner will also pay a reclamation bond of 8,000-10,000 yuan per mu, and undertake the reclamation of the temporarily occupied land. The bond will be returned to the owner if the reclaimed land has passed inspection; (3) young crops on the land temporarily occupied for the subproject will be compensated for based on twice the actual period of occupation at 3,630 yuan per mu for irrigated land, 4,530 yuan per mu for non-irrigated land and 4,530 yuan per mu for woodland; and (4) affected houses will be compensated for at the compensation rates for rural residential houses, namely 634 yuan per
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This note explores issues within the urban logistics and port-cities thematic pillar. It is one of three focus areas, or thematic pillars, for the multi-donor trust fund for sustainable logistics (MDTF-SL).
... See More + The goal of this pillar is to finance activities that will assist developing countries in two areas; addressing urban congestion resulting from retail distribution of goods, and improving the sustainable design and operation of port-cities. Activities under this pillar will concentrate on reducing congestion and pollution by focusing on the efficient distribution of goods in urban environments. Additional emphasis will be placed on the urban planning tools and investments required for port-cites to address sustainability issues endemic to densely populated economies serving as either a local or regional transport hubs.
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This environmental and social impact assessment of the Madagascar Integrated Growth Poles Project presents the environmental assessments for each of three strategic regions of the country: the district of Nosy Be, the Antananarivo / Antsirabe axis, and the district of Tolagnaro.
... See More + The report comprises a social assessment and cultural policy framework, identifies environmental impacts, and proposes mitigation measures aimed at integrating environmental and social dimensions into regional development, specifically, into the medium- and long-term development endeavors of each of the poles. It ensures that tourism development is sustainable in environmental and social terms. It also seeks to rationalize future subprojects. Anticipated impacts include soil erosion and sedimentation, loss of biodiversity, coral destruction due to starfish proliferation, water contamination from human pollutants, economic loss, disappearance of animal species, and, restricted access to land for the population and traffic congestion, further diminution of cultivable land, destruction of ancient buildings and homes, degradation of the marine environment and beaches from tourism activities, air pollution, disrespect of cultural taboos and moral values, and loss of cultural identity and increased sexual tourism. Some recommended mitigations include: signage and traffic management, installing drainage systems, building repair, land use management, public education and publicity campaigns about the risks of sexually transmitted diseases, promotion of public health, protection of water resources, installing latrines, privatizing garbage collection, feasibility studies on incineration, composting and biogas production, installing mechanisms to control air pollution including dust dispersion, scheduling work during normal business hours, repairing and maintaining transport vehicles, using other means to minimize noise such as planting a greenbelt along transport corridors, restoring land and woods, carefully handling hazardous substances, avoiding traveling through water courses, conserving vegetation, planning for emergencies, locating work camps at a reasonable distance from villages, and involving local authorities in operational activities and ensuring women's representation.
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Environmental Assessment E1118 NOV 04, 2013
Tecsult International Limitee; ECR; Land Ressources; APC
This paper presents a new type of land market analysis relevant to cities with plural tenure systems as in West Africa. The methodology hinges on a systemic analysis of land delivery channels, which helps to show how land is initially made available for circulation, how tenure can be formalized incrementally, and the different means whereby households can access land.
... See More + The analysis is applied to the area of Bamako in Mali, where information was collected through (i) interviews with key informants, (ii) a literature review on land policies, public allocations, and customary transfers of land, (iii) a press review on land disputes, and (iv) a survey of more than 1,600 land transfers of un-built plots that occurred between 2009 and 2012. The analysis finds that land is mostly accessed through an informal customary channel, whereby peri-urban land is transformed from agricultural to residential use, and through a public channel, which involves the administrative allocation of residential plots to households. The integrated analysis of land markets and land institutions stresses the complexity of procedures and the extra-legality of practices that strongly affect the functioning of formal and informal markets and make access to land costly and insecure, with negative social, economic, and environmental impacts over the long term.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS6687 NOV 01, 2013
Urbanization deserves urgent attention from policy makers, academics, entrepreneurs, and social reformers of all stripes. Nothing else will create as many opportunities for social and economic progress.
... See More + The urbanization project began roughly 1,000 years after the transition from the Pleistocene to the milder and more stable Holocene interglacial. In 2010, the urban population in developing countries stood at 2.5 billion. The developing world can accommodate the urban population growth and declining urban density in many ways. The most important citywide projects - successes like New York and Shenzhen show even more clearly how influential human intention can be. The developing world can accommodate the urban population growth and declining urban density in many ways. One is to have a threefold increase in the average population of its existing cities and a six fold increase in their average built-out area. Another, which will leave the built-out area of existing cities unchanged, will be to develop 625 new cities of 10 million people - 500 new cities to accommodate the net increase in the urban population and another 125 to accommodate the 1.25 billion people who will have to leave existing cities as average density falls by half.
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Cities emerge from the spatial concentration of people and economic activities. But spatial concentration is not enough; the economic viability of cities depends on people, ideas, and goods to move rapidly across the urban area.
... See More + This constant movement within dense cities creates wealth but also various degrees of unpleasantness and misery that economists call negative externalities, such as congestion, pollution, and environmental degradation. In addition, the poorest inhabitants of many cities are often unable to afford a minimum-size dwelling with safe water and sanitation, as if the wealth created by cities was part of a zero-sum game where the poor will be at the losing end. The main challenge for urban planners and economists is reducing cities' negative externalities without destroying the wealth created by spatial concentration. To do that, they must plan and design infrastructure and regulations while leaving intact the self-organizing created by land and labor markets. The balance between letting markets work and correcting market externalities through infrastructure investment and regulation is difficult to achieve. Too often, planners play sorcerer's apprentice when dealing with markets whose functioning they poorly understand. The role of the urban planner is then, first, to better understand the complex interaction between market forces and government interventions, infrastructure investment and regulation, and second, to design these interventions based on precise quantitative objectives. Each city's priorities would depend on its history, circumstances, and political environment. But maintaining mobility and keeping land affordable remains the main urban planning objective common to all cities.
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Inexorable urbanization and formalization have been the expectations in development discourse. Indeed, measures of urbanization and formalization have been provided and used as indicators of development.
... See More + But while urbanization has proceeded apace in developing countries, formalization has slowed significantly over the past quarter century. These disconnect raises questions for development analysis and development policy. Why did one expect urbanization and formalization to go together in the first place? Is the link between urbanization and formalization more complex than what had once thought? What then explains the recent disconnect between urbanization and formalization? Is formalization a reasonable policy goal? May urbanization policies and formalization policies conflict? If so, what can be done to resolve the conflicts? These are the questions this paper addresses. The paper has three core sections. The first section asks what exactly is meant by formality and informality. The second section turns to urbanization processes and asks how they intersect with and interact with the incentives to formalize. The third section looks at policy. Each view of how urbanization feeds formalization has distinctive policy conclusions.
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This paper focuses on several interrelated key questions on the geography of development. Although we herald cities with their industrial bases as 'engines of growth,' does industrialization in fact drive urbanization?
... See More + 1 What economic activities do cities of different sizes undertake? Does this change as countries develop? If so, what are the policy implications? Do development policies have a big-city bias? If so, what does this imply for growth and inequality, and what are appropriate place-based policies? Should countries have policies concerning optimal city sizes or city-size distributions? Urbanization is central to the development process. Employment shifts out of agriculture into industry, and industrial production proceeds most effectively in cities, with their agglomeration economies. Cities are thus viewed as engines of growth. While such relationships appear in the data, the process is not straightforward. Among developing countries, changes in income or industrialization correlate only weakly with changes in urbanization. This suggests that policy and institutional factors may also influence the urbanization process, weakening the link between industrialization and urbanization. The relationship between industrialization and urbanization is absent in Sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, the author will look at city sizes and city-size distributions. Factors determining both aspects are complex and poorly understood. It is hard to be proscriptive about either individual city sizes or overall city-size distributions. The best policies strengthen institutions in the relevant markets so that market forces can move the economy toward better outcomes. That said, the role of public-private interaction and the details of what institutional reforms different situations require are controversial.
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Urbanization is undoubtedly a key driver of development - cities provide the national platform for prosperity, job creation, and poverty reduction.
... See More + But urbanization also poses enormous challenges that one is familiar with: congestion, air pollution, social divisions, crime, the breakdown of public services and infrastructure, and the slums that one billion urban resident's call home. Urbanization is perhaps the single most important question in development today. It is clear that cities have not performed as well as can be expected in their transformative role for more livable, inclusive, people-centered, and sustainable development. But they have enormous potential as growth escalators, offering the opportunity to lift millions out of poverty, and serve as centers of knowledge, innovations, and entrepreneurship. Cities in both the developed and developing world want to attract more entrepreneurs and create more jobs. Cities also need to be resilient to natural hazards and the impacts of climate change. If these are left unaddressed, cities will become part of the problem rather than the solution.
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The objective of the Heilongjiang Cold Weather Smart Transportation System Project for China is to improve the convenience, reliability, safety and energy efficiency of the public transport systems in Harbin and Mudanjiang.
... See More + Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: a) the design departments should optimize the design, and minimize or avoid collecting land; b) to avoid the cultural landscape (including temples and other religious activities) and key cultural relics protection units. c) to avoid or minimize the occupation of existing and planned residential areas; d) to avoid or minimize the occupation of environmentally sensitive areas; e) the choice of resettlement areas should meet local development planning; f) the borrower is responsible for all costs associated with Land Acquisition, or LA and resettlement, and fully meet the financial and material needs in the resettlement and rehabilitation process; g) resettlement plan should include appropriate institutional arrangements to ensure effective and timely design, planning and implementation of resettlement and rehabilitation measures; h) arrange for effective internal and external monitoring mechanisms for the implementation of resettlement measures; and i) temporary migrants affected by the project and the loss of part of the property without the relocation of migrants should also be equivalent compensated.
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This environmental and social impact assessment of the Madagascar Integrated Growth Poles Project presents the environmental assessments for each of three strategic regions of the country: the district of Nosy Be, the Antananarivo / Antsirabe axis, and the district of Tolagnaro.
... See More + The report comprises a social assessment and cultural policy framework, identifies environmental impacts, and proposes mitigation measures aimed at integrating environmental and social dimensions into regional development, specifically, into the medium- and long-term development endeavors of each of the poles. It ensures that tourism development is sustainable in environmental and social terms. It also seeks to rationalize future subprojects. Anticipated impacts include soil erosion and sedimentation, loss of biodiversity, coral destruction due to starfish proliferation, water contamination from human pollutants, economic loss, disappearance of animal species, and, restricted access to land for the population and traffic congestion, further diminution of cultivable land, destruction of ancient buildings and homes, degradation of the marine environment and beaches from tourism activities, air pollution, disrespect of cultural taboos and moral values, and loss of cultural identity and increased sexual tourism. Some recommended mitigations include: signage and traffic management, installing drainage systems, building repair, land use management, public education and publicity campaigns about the risks of sexually transmitted diseases, promotion of public health, protection of water resources, installing latrines, privatizing garbage collection, feasibility studies on incineration, composting and biogas production, installing mechanisms to control air pollution including dust dispersion, scheduling work during normal business hours, repairing and maintaining transport vehicles, using other means to minimize noise such as planting a greenbelt along transport corridors, restoring land and woods, carefully handling hazardous substances, avoiding traveling through water courses, conserving vegetation, planning for emergencies, locating work camps at a reasonable distance from villages, and involving local authorities in operational activities and ensuring women's representation.
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Environmental Assessment E1118 AUG 27, 2013
Tecsult International Limitee; ECR; Land Ressources; APC
The resettlement action plan (RAP) for the Madagascar Integrated Growth Poles Project includes the country ' s regulatory and legal frameworks, and the Bank ' s safeguard policies, and principles for resettlement, stipulating the criteria for ensuring compensation to project affected people (PAP) as required, due to subprojects implementation.
... See More + The RAP addresses the following mitigating measures: cultural heritage sites are to be protected and respected in compliance with the country ' s legislation, and the Bank safeguards policy; mitigation measures for project affected people (PAP) will ensure that PAPs will gain benefit from the project and improve their standard of living; measures necessary to mitigate adverse impacts will be determined with participation of the displaced persons during design and implementation of the project; addressing the needs of displaced PAPs will be a priority during periods of transition and adaptation to new or temporary settlements; compensation to PAPs for the cost of losses from involuntary relocation, as required; and the previous level of community services and access to resources will be maintained or improved after resettlement.
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Resettlement Plan RP307 AUG 08, 2013
Techsult International Limitee; Land Ressources; ECR; APC