In the last 30 years, China’s record economic growth lifted half a billion people out of poverty, with rapid urbanization providing abundant labor, cheap land, and good infrastructure. While China has avoided some of the common ills of urbanization, strains are showing as inefficient land development leads to urban sprawl and ghost towns, pollution threatens people’s health, and farmland and water resources are becoming scarce. With China’s urban population projected to rise to about one billion – or close to 70 percent of the country’s population – by 2030, China’s leaders are seeking a more coordinated urbanization process. Urban China is a joint research report by a team from the World Bank and the Development Research Center of China’s State Council which was established to address the challenges and opportunities of urbanization in China and to help China forge a new model of urbanization. The report takes as its point of departure the conviction that China's urbanization can become more efficient, inclusive, and sustainable. However, it stresses that achieving this vision will require strong support from both government and the markets for policy reforms in a number of area. The report proposes six main areas for reform: first, amending land management institutions to foster more efficient land use, denser cities, modernized agriculture, and more equitable wealth distribution; second, adjusting the hukou household registration system to increase labor mobility and provide urban migrant workers equal access to a common standard of public services; third, placing urban finances on a more sustainable footing while fostering financial discipline among local governments; fourth, improving urban planning to enhance connectivity and encourage scale and agglomeration economies; fifth, reducing environmental pressures through more efficient resource management; and sixth, improving governance at the local level.

•The focus of published narrative on the great Chinese urbanization wave was always going to sharpen _ away from the general fascination, assertions, theories and commentaries to specific issues and specific regions. Well here is a first class example

Why do some cities grow economically while others decline? Why do some show sustained economic performance while others cycle up and down? In Keys to the City, Michael Storper, one of the world's leading economic geographers, looks at why we should consider economic development issues within a regional context--at the level of the city-region--and why city economies develop unequally. Storper identifies four contexts that shape urban economic development: economic, institutional, innovational and interactional, and political. The book explores how these contexts operate and how they interact, leading to developmental success in some regions and failure in others. Demonstrating that the global economy is increasingly driven by its major cities, the keys to the city are the keys to global development. In his conclusion, Storper specifies eight rules of economic development targeted at policymakers. Keys to the City explains why economists, sociologists, and political scientists should take geography seriously.

Urban Climates is the first full synthesis of modern scientific and applied research on urban climates. The book begins with an outline of what constitutes an urban ecosystem. It develops a comprehensive terminology for the subject using scale and surface classification as key constructs. It explains the physical principles governing the creation of distinct urban climates, such as airflow around buildings, the heat island, precipitation modification and air pollution, and it then illustrates how this knowledge can be applied to moderate the undesirable consequences of urban development and help create more sustainable and resilient cities. With urban climate science now a fully-fledged field, this timely book fulfills the need to bring together the disparate parts of climate research on cities into a coherent framework. It is an ideal resource for students and researchers in fields such as climatology, urban hydrology, air quality, environmental engineering and urban design.

This book discusses lessons and challenges of metropolitan circles development and urbanization in Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America and Africa. The book examines the effects of local governance systems, central-local relations, and administrative borders on metropolitan area development. It surveys economic, social and environmental issues, with an emphasis on how interconnectivity, circular economy, and climate issues should be integrated into megaregion development planning.The chapters are selected papers from the international conference on metropolitan circles development and urbanization jointly held by the Institute of Public Policy (IPP) at the South China University of Technology and UNESCO in 2018. Contributors from the US, the UK, Japan, France, Singapore, Indonesia, Mexico, Tanzania present their questions, observations, and analyses in a narrative and descriptive style which appeal to a wide range of audience.

Economic challenges in developing Asian countries have become more complex: urban populations are growing at great cost to the environment, climate change has increased risks of natural disasters, and income gaps within and between developing countries are widening. These factors threaten the sustainable growth and development of urban areas, the drivers of Asia's economy. A strategic approach for inclusive growth is needed. The City Cluster Economic Development approach provides a strategic framework and a set of analytical tools, which governments, businesses, and communities can use to support the inclusive and sustainable development of competitive urban economies in Asia. Said approach was developed and tested by the Asian Development Bank to improve the basis for integrated planning and development of urban regions in Asia and the Pacific. It also elps urban managers and other city stakeholders identify action plans and determine priority investment areas.