A Crowded City: Agglomeration and Mobility in Urban Development

This paper examines whether interventions that improve density, mobility and connectivity can release a city鈥檚 potential

Abstract

When agglomeration economies are low and commuting costs are high, employment and residence within cities is matched at a very local level 鈥 giving rise to a featureless 鈥淐rowded City鈥 in which neighborhoods look alike and all have mixed land use with both jobs and homes. This structure motivates the authors鈥 analytic framework, which examines whether mobility and connectivity are constraining today鈥檚 rapidly growing developing country cities and whether interventions that improve density, mobility, and connectivity can release a city鈥檚 development potential, including in terms of environmental quality and climate.

The paper also examines both formation of neighborhoods across the city as well as land use and size within a neighborhood.

This paper is an output of the Research on Growth and Urbanisation in Low Income Countries programme

Citation

Gunnar S. Eskeland and Somik V. Lall (2015) A Crowded City: Agglomeration and Mobility in Urban Development.

Updates to this page

Published 15 October 2017