cities

What does a perfect city look like in a low- or middle-income country – and how do you get there?

Why Leonard Wantchekon is hopeful for Africa's urban future.

Using data on 513 million workers worldwide, we show that location plays a major role in shaping earnings – and that better allocation of workers across cities could raise incomes, especially in developing countries.

Astrid Haas joins Ideas in Development to discuss why African cities are so fiscally constrained, and what reforms in Mexico, the Philippines, and Sierra Leone can teach us.

900 million people will be added to African cities by 2050. Getting this unprecedented urban transition right is one of the defining development challenges of our time.

Over a thousand years, China’s political hierarchy reshaped regional prosperity – provincial capitals flourished through bureaucracy and market access, but these benefits faded once they lost administrative status.

Agglomeration economies and the coordination of people’s expectations were pivotal to the recovery of central Hiroshima following the atomic bombing.

With rising rural-urban migration in developing countries, accelerated by climate change, it is crucial to understand how to incentivise adaptation in the design and construction of urban buildings.

The cities of developing countries are growing rapidly. How can economists design urban policy to raise the living standards of urban households?