Informal settlements are a permanent feature of South Africa's cities. Estimates from the General Household Survey by Statistics South Africa show that more than 26 percent of all households in the country's six metropolitan areas live in informal dwellings. The government's policy efforts have...

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is suffering from spatially divergent development. The uprisings of the Arab Spring in part reflected grievances of citizens who were or perceived to have been left behind, particularly by accidents of where they were born. This memo introduces a report...

Traditionally, inequality measurements have been designed only for non-spatial applications, despite the argument that inequality is manifested in social space (and may be perceived spatially). Presented here is an approach to understanding urban inequality in terms of the spatial distribution...

Globalization has two elements: economic globalization refers to the integration of global markets, while ideological globalization refers to the political ideas that underlie the spread of markets, trade, and democracy. Economic globalization is limited in its reach in the developing world:...

The industrial locational decisions of private capital are expected to be profit-maximizing or efficiency-oriented, and directed towards leading industrial regions, coasts and metropolises, and away from socialist governments. Industrial investments by the state, on the other hand, are expected...

Where do new industrial investments locate, and what factors drive the industrial location decisions? Do these investments follow the model of 'divergence followed by convergence' suggested by the cumulative causation, agglomeration economies, and transport-costs approaches? These questions are...

Today, 370 million people live in cities in earthquake prone areas and 310 million in cities with high probability of tropical cyclones. By 2050, these numbers are likely to more than double. Mortality risk therefore is highly concentrated in many of the world’s cities and economic risk even...