Urban Strategy Speaker Series
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Event 1: Sustainable Cities: Management Challenges in an Urbanizing World
Pre-Annual Meetings Event, October 9, 2008
Introduction & Opening Remarks
Kathy Sierra, Vice President & Network Head, Sustainable Development Network, The World Bank
Abha Joshi-Ghani, Sector Manager, Urban Development (Finance Economics and Urban Development Unit), The World Bank
Reshaping Economic Geography
Indermit Gill, Director World Development Report, 2009
Smart Growth: Policy Tools and Fiscal Instruments that Promote Balanced Growth and Economic Regeneration in the City Core
Dermot Finch, Director, Centre for Cities, London
Which are the Largest City Economies in the World and How Might that Change by 2020?
Thomas Hoehn, Partner, Price Waterhouse Coopers, and Visiting Professor, Imperial College Business School, London
The Healthy World Cities Initiative, City Leadership for Health & Sustainability
Michael Gusamo, Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management at State University of New York's Downstate Medical Center and Co-Director of the World Cities project
Financing Cities: The Role of Banks in Supporting Urban Development
Mari-Alice Lallemand-Flucher, Head of International Relations, Dexia, Paris
Industrial Life Cycle Transition Factors Constraining Sustainable Growth: Emerging Evidence in Three East Asian Cities
Shahid Yusuf, Economic Advisor, Development Economics Research Group, World Bank
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Brown Bag Lunch, November 19, 2008
Dr. Eric Heikkila
Professor at the School of Policy, Planning, and Development at the University of Southern California
Dr. Eric Heikkila presented a research paper that expands and builds on the classic Fujita and Ogawa paper entitled "Multiple Equilibria and Structure Transition of Non-Monocentric Urban Configurations" (1982) that served as a landmark in introducing the paradigm commonly referred to today as the new economic geography. Their paper models the emergence of urban centers brought about by household and firm location decision in the context of spatially differentiated labor and land market transactions. This model attempts to characterize the equilibrium values of the system.
In contrast, the Agent-Based Modeling Approach put forward in Dr. Heikkila's paper seeks to replicate the individual household and firm behaviors that lead to both equilibrium and non-equilibrium outcomes. The preoccupation of the ABM Approach on non-equilibrium outcomes helps to focus on questions of path dependency and bounded rationality. Dr. Heikkila's paper seeks to demonstrate that the urban outcomes that emerge depend critically on the bidding behavior of agents and the institutional context within which decision are made.
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Event 3: Revival of the Monocentric City: The Influence of Transit Networks and Regulations in Shaping Asian Cities: Singapore, Shanghai, Tianjin
Brown Bag Lunch, January 15, 2009
Alain Bertaud
Consultant - Land Planning Expert
In very dense cities of Asia, transit is the only feasible way of moving large numbers of people into and within the core city. The radial pattern of newly planned metro systems will reinforce monocentricity. Land use regulations allowing higher floor area ratios (FAR=25 in the newest CBD blocks in Singapore) in traditional CBDs will also reinforce monocentricity. Higher fuel prices will encourage commuters to use public transit. Could this be a new model of urbanization? Will it reverse the current trend consisting in the multiplication of new sub-centers and the suburbanization of employment? Consequences on GHG emissions. Counter factual: Delhi, Seoul, Gauteng (Johannesburg metropolitan area).
This event was video-recorded. Click here to view the video.
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Event 4: Chronicles of Success & Failure in Housing Sector Development and Poverty Alleviation from around the World
Brown Bag Lunch, February 2, 2009
Speaker Claude Taffin
Senior Housing Finance Specialist, Global Capital Market Non-Banking Financial Instutions Division Chair Barbara Lipman Senior Housing Specialist, Finance, Economics, & Urban Development Division Adequate and affordable housing is both a measure and a driver of the quality of life for virtually everyone. What can be done to help people who lack such housing attain it? Drawing on experienced gained and lessons learned from the development of the housing sector around the world, this presentation will consider the key housing policy challenges over the coming decade. Among them: How and why is development of the housing sector important for economic growth and poverty alleviation? What factors will affect the future demand and supply of housing, particularly for the lowest-income households? Under what conditions have efforts to intervene in the sector been successful – and when have they failed? And, what are the implications for the advice, products, and services The World Bank provides to client cities and governments? This event was video-recorded:
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A portion of the Urban Strategy Speaker Series was addressed during the World Bank Urban Sector Week in March 2009 at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington D.C. Presentations were made on the following topics:
- City Management
- Urban Poverty & Slums
- Municipal Finance
