Urbanization Conferences

The 8th Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Research Conference will bring together academics and development practitioners to present and discuss questions relating to urban expansion and the future of cities.

The theme is of increasing importance to academics and policy makers alike as the supply of ideas and demand for solutions to address the challenges of urban expansion are growing. Cities in some developing countries are growing at faster rates and at lower income levels than those in developed countries. If well-directed and well-managed, expansion and densification of urban areas can bring economic growth while also offering poverty reduction opportunities. If poorly directed and managed, the result can be congested, unsustainable, and unproductive environments. 

Planning for the cities of tomorrow is thus a crucial task, but one benefitting from a multi-disciplinary approach. This edition of the conference will draw from experts at the interface of policy and research to understand which new ideas, new methods, and new collaborations can bring about necessary changes.

The conference is co-sponsored by the World Bank (Development Research Group and Urban, Disaster Risk, Resilience, and Land), George Washington University (Elliott School of International Affairs, Institute for International Economic Policy, and Center for International Business Education and Research), the International Growth Centre (Cities that Work and Cities Research Program), and Millennium Challenge Corporation.

The 6th Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Conference will bring together academics and development practitioners to present and discuss questions relating to People, Markets, and Cities. In particular, the conference will focus on effective land, housing, transport and local labor market policies in cities and their implications for economic development and social inclusion.

This conference is hosted by the World Bank, George Washington University, the Inter-American Development Bank and the International Growth Center. 

Across the developing world, the growth of cities is outpacing effective policy. Low density land use results in rapidly expanding cities, raising the costs of infrastructure and service provision and limiting livability and productivity. At the same time, limited investments in transport infrastructure such as roads limits the connectivity between individuals and opportunities that make cities engines for growth. Effective policy to address these challenges requires an understanding of the spatial organization of cities, and how the distribution of private and public investments across a city affect economic growth.The conference hosted by the World Bank, George Washington University, the International Monetary Fund and the International Growth Centre's Cities Program brought together academics and development practitioners to present and discuss questions relating to the spatial organization of cities and economic growth. It focused on effective land and transport policy in cities and the implications of urban development for national growth. 

This conference hosted by the World Bank, George Washington University (Institute for International Economic Policy), the NYU Marron Institute of Urban Management, the NYU Urbanization Project, and The Growth Dialogue brought together academics and development practitioners to present and discuss the challenges of sustainable urbanization in developing countries.​

Addressing environmental change in urban areas is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century, particularly given that the world is now more than half urban, and Africa and Asia are experiencing unprecedented rates of urban population growth. Cities themselves are a major contributor to this challenge, as they consume an enormous share of the world’s energy and emit large amounts of carbon dioxide. At the same time, they are heavily vulnerable to climate change and increasingly exposed to climate induced risks (including floods from rising sea levels and higher precipitation, destruction from stronger cyclones and storms, and periods of extreme heat and cold). The phenomenon of urbanization itself is also likely to be significantly altered by environmentally induced migration. Despite these risks, many cities have not created or implemented crucially needed policies to attenuate the causes of climate change and to effectively protect cities from its impacts.

The conference on "Urbanization and Poverty", jointly organized between the World Bank and George Washington University-Institute for International Economic Policy (GWU-IIEP), brought together academics and development practitioners over two days to discuss the challenges of urbanization in view of rural-urban structural transformation.The world is urbanizing rapidly, with cities today concentrating more than half the world’s population. While it is widely accepted that development and urbanization go hand in hand, the expansion of cities gives rise to both opportunities and challenges, with countries urbanizing in quite different ways. Urbanization has been occurring at different times and different paces, and some countries have concentrated the urban populations in few mega cities, while others have spread the urban populations across many smaller towns. Particularly little is known about the relation between the pace and nature of the urbanization process and the evolution of inequality and poverty. This conference aimed to initiate a dialogue among all stakeholders on the drivers and patterns of urbanization and their consequences for inequality and poverty to elicit key insights for policymakers, with special attention to Africa’s unfolding urbanization process.