Rapid urbanization is a fact of live even in the least developed countries (LDCs) where the lion’s share of the population presently lives in rural areas and will continue to do so for decades to come. At the turn of the millennium 75% of the LDCs’ population still lived in rural areas and...

This paper provides a survey and guide to the literature relevant to urbanization and economic development. The paper starts with some basic facts and trends about urbanization worldwide. It then reviews the traditional twosector urban-rural model, but focuses on the modern version, Krugman¡¯s...

Urbanization in China has in part been subject to centrally planned control and in part has resulted from the pressures of industrialization and economic development. One of the major, if neglected, influences has been the social policies controlling internal migration and influencing...

This paper uses variations in international commodity prices and rainfall to construct instrumental variables estimates of the within-country effect that changes in the size of the agricultural sector and GDP per capita growth have on the urbanization rate. For a panel of 41 African countries...

Research at the intersection of development and spatial economics is increasingly important to address pressing issues in rapidly-urbanizing cities in low- and middle- income countries. This handbook chapter presents the canonical spatial model and then explores it through the lens of...

This paper explores one possible argument for how to respond to the epistemic troubles in the production of knowledge about urban Africa. The problem I have in mind is the preponderance of policy-oriented research on the development challenges and absences of African cities, as opposed to a more...

South Asia has the highest rate of child malnutrition in the world, despite rapid economic growth compared to other regions such as sub-Saharan Africa. Known as the 'South Asian enigma' this feature is partly attributed to the low status of women in South Asian societies. This paper examines...

Cities - especially those with substantial poor populations - will face increasingly severe challenges in tackling the impacts of global environmental change (GEC). As economic dynamos and increasingly important population concentrations, cities both contribute substantially, and often are very...

Accepting that successful 'development' is premised on a population's participation in a collective undertaking, we must understand urban residents'; interactions and ambitions. In African cities being transformed by geographic and social mobility, it is unclear what forms of inclusion,...

Land efficiency in urban China is examined, using Tianjin as a case study, from the perspective of agricultural land conservation; reduction in energy use, conventional pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions; and human time savings. Issues addressed include increased scatter on the periphery,...