The Problem of Urbanization Without Economic Growth

Some 200,000 people move into cities across the globe each and every day. Over the course of the next century, that figure will add up to billions. Mayors, urban leaders and economists are generally optimistic, believing that this march toward urbanization goes hand in hand with greater economic development and rising living standards. But that may not be the case. Today, rapid urbanization is not always accompanied by rising fortunes—particularly for the poorest people flocking to the rapidly growing mega-cities of the developing world.

I have previously written on the troubling persistence of global slums and the rise of what Edward Glaeser has dubbed “poor-country urbanization.” Now, in a recent study [PDF], economists Remi Jedwab of George Washington University and Dietrich Vollrath of the University of Houston look at the persistence of what they term “urbanization without growth” over the long sweep of history. In particular, they examine whether the urbanization of cities without an accompanying bump in living standards is a relatively new phenomenon limited to the rapidly growing mega-cities of today, or if it is a part of a pattern across history.