Convergence : Five Critical Steps Toward Integrating Lagging and Leading Areas in the Middle East and North Africa

Front Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Memorandum to a Concerned Finance Minister -- About the Authors -- Abbreviations -- Overview -- Why do so many place-based interventions fail? -- How can the region's countries approach convergence? -- Fragmented cities, stuck people, walled-off countries: The symptoms of institutional constraints on growth -- Place-based and centralized: How national policies and institutions in the Middle East and North Africa perpetuate economic inefficiency and spatial inequity -- Five transitional steps to reduce institutional inefficiency, speed the Middle East and North Africa's economic development, and enable convergent growth -- The prospects for regional integration: Distant yet vital to the Middle East and North Africa -- Notes -- References -- 1 Fragmented Cities, Constrained Growth -- Rapid urbanization has not brought commensurate economic benefits to the Middle East and North Africa -- Modernist planning and informality play crucial roles in the fragmented urban fabric -- Concluding remarks -- Annex 1A Methodology for calculating the agglomeration index -- Annex 1B Methodology for developing indicators of urban form -- Annex 1C Methodology for analyzing road and intersection densities -- Annex 1D Comparison of Global Human Settlement Layers and Global Urban Footprint datasets -- Notes -- References -- 2 Unequal Spaces and Stuck People -- High disparities and low migration hinder economic mobility -- Low migration suppresses labor mobility in the Middle East and North Africa -- Credential-oriented education systems offer one explanation for low internal mobility -- Concluding remarks -- Annex 2A Data sources and coverage -- Notes -- References -- 3 Walled Urban Economies -- Large cities will remain important in the Middle East and North Africa landscape.