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31. Will the cities of the future work for everyone?

Author:
Solomon Greene and Sarah Rosen Wartell
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
A century ago, 1 in 10 people lived in urban areas; today, it’s more than half. By 2050, that fraction will rise to two thirds of the world’s population as cities of all sizes swell to accommodate an estimated 2.5 billion more urban dwellers. What will cities look like in the future? Next week, researchers from the Urban Institute will join global leaders at the United Nations’ historic Habitat III conference to take stock of our progress in creating sustainable cities that meet the needs of all residents, and to get ahead of anticipated changes that will create both opportunities and challenges for city dwellers, our nations, and our planet.
Topic:
Development, Urban, and Cities
Political Geography:
Global Focus

32. To foster sustainable development, cities need data—and permission to use it

Author:
Solomon Greene, Benjamin Edwards, and G. Thomas Kingsley
Publication Date:
05-2016
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
Cities are where sustainable development challenges like poverty and disaster risk are felt most acutely, particularly as the world’s population shifts to urban areas. But cities can also be incubators for the policies to address those challenges, and local leaders increasingly hold the keys to fostering inclusive growth and mitigating climate change. Fortunately, city leaders across the globe are rallying behind sustainable development in all its dimensions: environmental sustainability, economic opportunity, and social inclusion. Mayors and local leaders were instrumental in securing a dedicated goal on inclusive and sustainable cities in the United Nations’s 2030 Agenda and framework of 17 high-level Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), signed by all member states at a historic summit last September. Since then, hundreds of local leaders have made commitments to support SDGs in their cities, forming new global networks and designing local implementation plans.
Topic:
Economics, Environment, Sustainable Development Goals, and Cities
Political Geography:
Global Focus

33. Dynamic Cities? The Role of Urban Local Governments in Improving Urban Service Delivery Performance in Africa and Asia

Author:
Jamie Boex, Ammar A. Malik, Devanne Brookins, and Ben Edwards
Publication Date:
07-2016
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
Cities are engines of economic growth that provide spaces for social transformation and political inclusion. Their ability to deliver widely accessible and efficiently functioning public services drives productivity and sustains development. We design and apply an assessment framework to 42 cities in 14 African and Asian countries to better understand the functional, administrative, and political dimensions determining the quality and coverage of water, sanitation, and solid waste collection services. We find that urban local governments are constrained in their authority and discretion to deliver basic public services. Reforming intergovernmental institutional structures to better match responsibilities is essential for realizing cities’ full economic potential.
Topic:
Government, Water, Governance, International Development, Economic Growth, Urban, Sanitation, Services, and Cities
Political Geography:
Africa, Asia, and Global Focus

34. Women’s Economic Empowerment: A Review of Evidence on Enablers and Barriers

Author:
H. Elizabeth Peters, Nan Marie Astone, Ammar A. Malik, Fenohasina Rakotondrazaka Maret, and Caroline Heller
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
Besides human rights protection and social welfare improvement, fostering female participation in the economy can stimulate growth with human capital accumulation and enhance the competitiveness of businesses. But women face many barriers to participating in the labor market, particularly in high productivity sectors, due to limited investments in education, time burdens from care responsibilities, legal prohibitions to land ownership, and sexual harassment and violence. We find evidence that improving access to infrastructure and public services, reforms in inheritance laws, family friendly workplace policies, and reduction in levels of violence can significantly improve women’s economic empowerment.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Women, International Development, Economic Growth, and Cities
Political Geography:
Global Focus

35. A Political Economy Framework for the Urban Data Revolution

Author:
Benjamin Edwards, Solomon Greene, and G. Thomas Kingsley
Publication Date:
04-2016
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
As the global population grows increasingly urbanized, city governments will assume ever-greater responsibility for addressing the challenges of poverty, inequality, and environmental sustainability. To meet these challenges effectively, city leaders must base their efforts on good data and reliable evidence. This paper develops a framework for understanding the conditions under which city leaders access, analyze, and apply data to solve problems. We also suggest how the new UN Sustainable Development Goals can help overcome the institutional constraints and competing incentives that cities face in using data to drive decisionmaking for sustainable development.
Topic:
Urbanization, Sustainable Development Goals, International Development, and Cities
Political Geography:
United Nations and Global Focus

36. How can developing cities provide better water to their residents?

Author:
Benjamin Edwards and Mohammad Hamze
Publication Date:
11-2015
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
The world’s urban population is projected to add 2.5 billion people by 2050, with nearly 90 percent of the increase concentrated in Asia and Africa. The provision of safe, clean drinking water in urban settings is a high priority for international development, and justifiably so. Drinking water that is protected from contamination improves health, education, and economic growth, yet roughly 150 million urban dwellers do not have access, with numbers on the rise. Fortunately, the problem has not gone unrecognized. An expansive body of work explores the causes of water market failures and the policy interventions national governments can use to mitigate them. This body of work, however, has paid less heed to local governments’ role in implementing those policies, a critical link in the chain of service provision.
Topic:
Development, Government, Water, and Cities
Political Geography:
Africa, Asia, and Global Focus

37. What defines a “city”?

Author:
Ammar A. Malik and Julia Hagen
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
Readers love lists, especially city rankings. There are lists that rank the world’s leading cities of opportunity, the most sustainable cities, the bike-friendliest cities, the top shopping cities, and even the most competitive cities in the future. What they all share is an attempt to measure cities. But what defines a city? The answer isn’t as clear-cut as it seems. Every year, leading corporations fund the publication of an increasingly large number of benchmarking studies, which generate significant interest in the media. Even the UN has jumped on this bandwagon by adapting, for the first time, an urban goal within the Sustainable Development Goals framework. However, the basic question of what constitutes a city is often defined inconsistently across rankings. This could leave general-interest readers and policymakers, confused, or worse—misled.
Topic:
United Nations, Urbanization, Sustainable Development Goals, and Cities
Political Geography:
Global Focus

38. Triggering Increased City-Level Public Finance for Pro-Poor Sanitation Improvements

Author:
Jameson Boex and Benjamin Edwards
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
This paper provides a general framework for understanding the political economy and fiscal determinants of sanitation service provision by urban local governments. The paper will address several questions: what do we expect to influence spending on local sanitation? Do different fiscal instruments have an impact on expenditure levels? Do increased local revenues lead to increased expenditures over the long term? What role do different stakeholders play in determining expenditure levels? The paper first looks at the role of political factors in constraining local expenditure decisions, then turns to a review of the fiscal determinants of service delivery expenditures.
Topic:
Political Economy, Governance, Urban, Sanitation, Services, and Cities
Political Geography:
Global Focus

39. Energy, Cities, and Security: Tackling Climate Change and Fossil Fuel Risk

Author:
Peter Droege
Publication Date:
09-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:
School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University
Abstract:
The world economy is based on cities: cities are its very home. Global financial flows are structured within urban systems; city networks physically articulate national and international markets. Historically, cities have been built around markets, too. Founded on trade routes, they formed growing economies in themselves; they gave rise to and nurtured the dynasties and institutions that manage the decisions that guide national economies. Cities are settings of political command and control, and centres of culture. Here society’s leading images and messages are produced and packaged, shaping social reality and articulating aspirations. The great urban centers of yore were the main stages of their respective political settings. Democracy was developed by urban societies, and it was shaped and supported in the public spaces and institutions of major cities. Today, most population growth occurs in urbanized areas, with half of the world’s population dwelling here. But cities, their form, economies, and growth dynamics have also been very much defined by the energy systems dominating their eras. The manner of this interaction helps define the security profile of an age, a nation, or the balance of global relations. Global trade, sprawling cities, or periods of large-city formation are not new historical phenomena. The stories of hegemonic urban networks involving Babylon of the 18th century BC, Angkor of the 12th century AD, or London of the late 18th century are testimony to this fact. But the speed and sheer mass of the current urbanization wave, and the formation of super and mega-sized cities as a widespread, simultaneous, indeed, global phenomenon is unprecedented; it has only been acknowledged as a significant force during this past half-century. While rampant urbanization had not found wide recognition prior to the 1970s, it has also not been particularly well understood in the time since. The massive explosion of the world’s urban population is relatively new, gathering momentum in the first half of the 20th century and accelerating from the 1950s on. From the 1970s, a burgeoning research literature genre formed to give meaning and voice to this phenomenon.1 Since then, these urban centers have been described as world cities, global cities, megacities, or referred to broadly as the global urban system. Regardless of the label used, this conception connotes primacy of global markets, corporate control, seats of national power, homes to regional security apparatuses and, above all, the agency and relevance of technological innovation in surface, air & sea transport, defense, and the advent of advanced telecommunications.
Topic:
Security, Climate Change, Economy, Fossil Fuels, Cities, and Energy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

40. Mother and Child: A Multi-Determinant Model for Maternal and Infant Health Outcomes in Urban, Low-Income Communities and the Effectiveness of Prenatal Care and Other Interventions

Author:
Matthew W. Wolfe
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Public and International Affairs (JPIA)
Institution:
School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Princeton University
Abstract:
Research examining the outcomes of prenatal care has largely been restricted to medical interventions. Focusing on low-income women in urban communities, this paper fi rst describes a broadened set of expectations of prenatal care and other interventions. It proposes a more holistic framework for analyzing policy choices by examining the numerous determinants that affect maternal and child health outcomes. Then, it examines policy options through these determinants.
Topic:
Health, Children, Cities, Parenting, and Pregnancy
Political Geography:
Global Focus