A competitive city is a city that successfully facilitates its firms and industries to create jobs, raise productivity, and increase the incomes of citizens over time. Worldwide, improving the competitiveness of cities is a pathway to eliminating extreme poverty and to promoting shared...

The Chongqing 2035 scenario study compares the modeled outcomes of two different development paths, as represented by land use scenarios for projected growth of 5.8 million new urban residents and 4 million new jobs.A "Trend" scenario continues past patterns of land development, characterized by...

African cities are growing faster than cities on any other continent. With populations growing at such an enormous rate, it is often difficult for infrastructure to keep pace with urban growth. Rising automobile traffic on the continent has posed a great challenge. Increasingly, African cities...

This report makes the case for increased and urgent investment in climate-resilient cities in India. With a doubling of the urban population expected by 2050, from 480 million in 2020 to 951 million, more than half of urban growth, in terms of new infrastructure, buildings, and urban services,...

Over the last decade, turkey has initiated several regulatory and institutional reforms to better mitigate and reduce disaster risks, with a focus on seismic risk. The Squatter (Gecekondu) Law No. 775 (1966) was the first regulatory effort to produce housing for low-income groups in Turkey, and...

Tanzania's growth and poverty reduction aspirations hinge on shifting from a reliance on agriculture toward greater productivity. Cities' key role in generating a more competitive economy is already apparent: in 2012, just four Tanzanian cities produced more than half of the country's gross...

The United Nations (UN) Urbanization Prospects report (2009) indicated that the world will become predominantly urban in a few years. The increasing interest in urban affairs (policy and praxis), the renewal mission and the shift in global economic growth towards China and India fueled increased...

Central America is undergoing an important transition, with urban populations increasingat accelerated speeds, bringing pressing challenges as well as opportunities to boost sustained,inclusive and resilient growth. Today, 59 percent of Central America's population lives in urban areas, but it...

This policy note aims to advance our understanding of urban forced displacement, induced by conflict, by looking at the issue from the perspective of receiving towns and cities. It explores why we need a different approach to addressing urban forced displacement; how to "think differently" about...

Developments in the Rwandan economy as of the first half of 2017 have been mixed. On the upside, Rwanda's external imbalances have eased on account of improvements in global commodity prices, global and regional strengthening of growth recovery, and the external adjustment the government...