Special Focus

Urban Development Issues Since 2000, B-SPAN has covered a wide range of urban development events that have featured exchanges of ideas and experiences by leading practitioners regarding best practices, analytical tools, and recommendations for new research frameworks. These events have featured authors such as Jane Jacobs and noted academics from around the world. Many of these events, such as the Metropolitan Governance Series, have sought to raise awareness within the World Bank about the multiple dimensions of urban development and poverty reduction including governance, infrastructure, disaster management, transport, and health. The Urban Research Symposium, which took place in 2002 and 2003, explored recent and ongoing urban research with policy and operational relevance to economic growth and poverty reduction. B-SPAN is proud to feature these events, which explore the challenges, realities, and opportunities of urban development.

B-SPAN releases from this special focus are:

Delivering Modern Energy Services for Urban Africa - Status, Trends and Opportunities for Commercially Sustainable Interventions 03/21/2003 A review of the African urban energy sector is presented. Trends and opportunities for improving policymaking are identified. Metropolitan Governance Series 04/05/2002 through 06/25/2002 This series addresses management, leadership, and organizational arrangements in urban areas covering multiple jurisdictions. Topics include decentralization, ports, disaster risk, and transport. National Urban Strategy for Mexico 06/13/2002 This report identifies development and competitiveness challenges and possible solutions for Mexican cities. A primary source of problems is found to be a dysfunctional nexus between land management, housing markets, and urban transport. Poverty Mapping in Urban Areas 11/14/2002 An overview of highly disaggregated databases of poverty and inequality are presented. Researchers present a methodology to estimate welfare indicators for small areas as well as results from recent pilots projects. The Quiet Revolution 07/23/2003 An overview of the book, The Quiet Revolution is presented. It traces the growth and effects of decentralization and democracy in Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s. Urban Development Issues in Ulaanbaatar City, Mongolia 04/12/2002 World Bank and Mongolian officials discuss infrastructure and environmental projects that seek to improve living conditions in the capital’s informal housing quarters known as Gers. Urban Forum 2002 04/02/2002 through 04/03/2002 The Urban Forum 2002 featured discussions on urban development and economics. The events focused on programmatic lending, community-driven development, and new capacity-building tools. Urban Growth Management Initiative: Making Minimal Preparations in the Developing World for Doubling the Size of Cities in the Next 30 Years 02/20/2002 The complications of planning for future service delivery in older, high-density and newer, low-density urban areas are discussed. The economic, social, and policy motivations for these patterns of land consumption are also explored. Urban Research Symposium 2003: Urban Development for Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction 12/15/2003 through 12/17/2003 This event explored how urban development contributes to economic growth and poverty reduction at the national and sub-national level. Key themes were governance, financing, infrastructure, and poverty reduction. Urbanization in a Global/National Perspective 02/21/2002 Hukou, an official Chinese government restriction on migration is reviewed. This presentation suggests that restricting migration creates a labor surplus in rural areas and curtails productivity in urban areas. Evaluating the Poverty Impact of Projects: Tools for Practitioners 03/05/2003 Discussion of this handbook focused on concepts and methods for impact evaluation and their application to urban development projects. The handbook provides tools and methodologies for analyzing the poverty impact of World Bank projects.   »more...