Divided Cities Understanding Intra-urban Inequalities


Book Description

This report provides an assessment of spatial inequalities and segregation in cities and metropolitan areas from multiple perspectives. The chapters in the report focus on a subset of OECD countries and non-member economies, and provide new insights on cross-cutting issues for city neighbourhooods.




Urban Socio-Economic Segregation and Income Inequality


Book Description

This open access book investigates the link between income inequality and socio-economic residential segregation in 24 large urban regions in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. It offers a unique global overview of segregation trends based on case studies by local author teams. The book shows important global trends in segregation, and proposes a Global Segregation Thesis. Rising inequalities lead to rising levels of socio-economic segregation almost everywhere in the world. Levels of inequality and segregation are higher in cities in lower income countries, but the growth in inequality and segregation is faster in cities in high-income countries. This is causing convergence of segregation trends. Professionalisation of the workforce is leading to changing residential patterns. High-income workers are moving to city centres or to attractive coastal areas and gated communities, while poverty is increasingly suburbanising. As a result, the urban geography of inequality changes faster and is more pronounced than changes in segregation levels. Rising levels of inequality and segregation pose huge challenges for the future social sustainability of cities, as cities are no longer places of opportunities for all.




City of Equals


Book Description

When we think about equality in the city, we are very likely to think first of the wide and growing divide between rich and poor, in material terms. Yet when we think more about a 'city of equals' it becomes apparent that how people feel treated by the city and those around them, and whether they can live according to their values, are much more central. Accordingly, combining their own reflections, a multi-disciplinary literature review, and, distinctively, more than 180 interviews in 10 cities in 6 countries, Wolff and de Shalit have derived an account of a city of equals based on the idea that it should give each of its city-zens a secure sense of place or belonging. Four underlying values structure this account. First, access to the goods and services of the city should not be based purely on the market. Second, each person should be able to live a life they find meaningful. Third, there should be diversity and wide social mixing. Fourth, there should be 'non-deferential inclusion': each person should be able to get access to what they are entitled to without being treated as less worthy than others. They should be able to enjoy their rights without bowing and scraping, waiting longer than others, or going through special bureaucratic hurdles. In sum, in a city of equals each person is proud of their city and has the (justified) feeling that their city is proud of (people like) them. This is an open access title available under the terms of a [CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International] licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.




Urban Inequality and Segregation in Europe and China


Book Description

This open access book explores new research directions in social inequality and urban segregation. With the goal of fostering an ongoing dialogue between scholars in Europe and China, it brings together an impressive team of international researchers to shed light on the entwined processes of inequality and segregation, and the implications for urban development. Through a rich collection of empirical studies at the city, regional and national levels, the book explores the impact of migration on cities, the related problems of social and spatial segregation, and the ramifications for policy reform. While the literature on both segregation and inequality has traditionally been dominated by European and North American studies, there is growing interest in these issues in the Chinese context. Economic liberalization, rapid industrial restructuring, the enormous growth of cities, and internal migration, have all reshaped the country profoundly. What have we learned from the European and North American experience of segregation and inequality, and what insights can be gleaned to inform the bourgeoning interest in these issues in the Chinese context? How is China different, both in terms of the nature and the consequences of segregation inequality, and what are the implications for future research and policy? Given the continued rise of China’s significance in the world, and its recent declaration of war on poverty, this book offers a timely contribution to scholarship, identifying the core insights to be learned from existing research, and providing important guidance on future directions for policy makers and researchers.




La evolución geográfica de la productividad y el empleo


Book Description

En La evolución geográfica de la productividad y el empleo: Ideas para lograr un crecimiento inclusivo a través de una perspectiva territorial en América Latina y el Caribe se utiliza una perspectiva territorial para comprender las tasas de crecimiento económico persistentemente bajas de América Latina y el Caribe (ALC). Utilizando nuevos datos y métodos, se muestra que la desindustrialización, la distancia y las divisiones son factores interrelacionados que explican la paradoja de la productividad urbana en ALC, a saber: las ciudades densamente pobladas deberían estar entre las más productivas del mundo, pero no lo están. Las ciudades de ALC se han visto frenadas por la falta de dinamismo, la mala conectividad y las divisiones en barrios pobres y prósperos desconectados. A causa de la desindustrialización, el empleo urbano se ha desplazado, especialmente en las ciudades más grandes de la región, de las manufacturas a actividades no comercializables menos dinámicas y de baja productividad, como el comercio minorista y los servicios personales y de otra índole, que se benefician menos con la aglomeración, sobre todo en ciudades muy congestionadas. Si bien el empleo en el sector de los servicios comercializables urbanos ha aumentado, el alza ha sido lo suficientemente firme como para compensar la disminución del empleo en el sector manufacturero. Al mismo tiempo, los problemas de conectividad interurbana han menoscabado el desempeño de la red de ciudades de la región, dado que restringen el acceso a los mercados y la capacidad de las empresas para beneficiarse de la especialización reubicándose en ciudades más pequeñas. Dentro de las ciudades, la conectividad deficiente y la segregación del mercado laboral residencial han limitado los beneficios de la aglomeración a los vecindarios de los distritos comerciales centrales donde operan las empresas formales. La informalidad ha persistido en los barrios de bajos ingresos, cuyos habitantes enfrentan múltiples privaciones. En cambio, muchas zonas agrícolas y mineras se han beneficiado con la fuerte demanda de productos básicos por parte de China y otras economías de rápido crecimiento, particularmente durante la década dorada (2003-13), lo que llevó a una disminución de la desigualdad territorial en la mayoría de los países de la región. Se concluye que, para fomentar el crecimiento inclusivo, los países deben transformar más eficientemente la riqueza natural en capital humano, infraestructura e instituciones, y mejorar la competitividad de la economía urbana. En tal sentido, se esbozan los contornos de dicha strategia de desarrollo, identificando las prioridades en materia de políticas a nivel nacional, regional y local.




The Evolving Geography of Productivity and Employment


Book Description

The Evolving Geography of Productivity and Employment: Ideas for Inclusive Growth through a Territorial Lens in Latin America and the Caribbean employs a territorial lens to understand the persistently low economic growth rates in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Using new data and methods, it shows that deindustrialization, distance, and divisions offer intertwined explanations for an urban productivity paradox in the LAC region: its highly dense cities should be among the world’s most productive, yet they are not. LAC cities have been held back by lack of dynamism, poor connectivity, and divisions into disconnected poor and affluent neighborhoods. Deindustrialization has shifted urban employment, especially in the largest LAC cities, away from manufacturing and toward less dynamic, low-productivity nontradable activities, such as retail trade and personal and other services, that profit less from agglomeration, especially in highly congested cities. Although employment in urban tradable services has risen, the increase has not been strong enough to offset the decline in manufacturing employment. Meanwhile, intercity connectivity issues have undermined the performance of the region’s network of cities by restricting market access and firms’ ability to benefit from specialization in smaller cities. Within cities, poor connectivity and residential labor market segregation have limited the gains from agglomeration to neighborhoods in central business districts where formal firms operate. Informality has persisted in low-income neighborhoods, where residents face multiple deprivations. By contrast, many agricultural and mining areas have benefited from the strong demand for commodities by China and other fast-growing economies, particularly during the Golden Decade (2003†“13), leading to a decline in territorial inequality in most countries in the region. The report concludes that to encourage inclusive growth, countries must more efficiently transform natural wealth into human capital, infrastructure, and institutions and improve the competitiveness of the urban economy. It then sketches out the contours of such a development strategy, identifying policy priorities at the national, regional, and local levels.




OECD Urban Studies Cities in the World A New Perspective on Urbanisation


Book Description

Cities are not only home to around half of the global population but also major centers of economic activity and innovation. Yet, so far there has been no consensus of what a city really is. Substantial differences in the way cities, metropolitan, urban, and rural areas are defined across countries hinder robust international comparisons and an accurate monitoring of SDGs. The report Cities in the World: A New Perspective on Urbanisation addresses this void and provides new insights on urbanisation by applying for the first time two new definitions of human settlements to the entire globe: the Degree of Urbanisation and the Functional Urban Area.




Changing Neighbourhoods


Book Description

In recent decades growing inequality and polarization have been reshaping the social landscape of Canada’s metropolitan areas, changing neighbourhoods and negatively affecting the lived realities of increasingly diverse urban populations. This book examines the dimensions and impacts of increased economic inequality and urban socio-spatial polarization since the 1980s. Based on the work of the Neighbourhood Change Research Partnership, an innovative national comparative study of seven major cities, the authors reveal the dynamics of neighbourhood change across the Canadian urban system. By mapping average income trends across neighbourhoods, they show the kinds of factors – social, economic, and cultural – that influenced residential options and redistributed concentrations of poverty and affluence. While the heart of the book lies in the project’s findings from each city, other chapters provide critical context. Taken together, they offer important understandings of the depth and the breadth of the problem at hand and signal the urgency for concerted policy responses in the decades to come.




Cities at the Heart of Inequalities


Book Description

Cities have become the major habitat for human societies. They are also the places where the starkest social inequalities show up. Income, social, land and housing inequalities shape the built environment and living conditions of different neighborhoods of cities, and in return, unequal access to services, environmental quality and favorable health conditions in different neighborhoods and cities fuel the reproduction of interpersonal inequalities. This book examines how inequalities are produced and reproduced both within and between cities. In particular, we review land rent and social segregation theories from diverse disciplinary references and through examples taken from around the world. The attraction of urban centralities, which is further reinforced by the growing financialization of property and urban capital, is also analyzed through the lens of its influence on rent-seeking mechanisms and the ever increasing pressure of population migration.




International Housing Market Experience and Implications for China


Book Description

Recent rapid housing market expansion in China is presenting new challenges for policy makers, planners, business people, and citizens. Now that housing in middle-income China is driven by consumer choices and is no longer dominated by state policy decisions, housing policy issues in Chinese cities are becoming increasingly similar to those encountered in other global housing markets. With soaring prices and imbalances in housing supply favoring high income groups and housing demand driven by rising inequality in household incomes, many middle and lower-income households face worsening choices in terms of the quality and location of their housing as well as greater financial difficulties, which together can have negative implications for standards of public health. This book examines the impact of these changes on the general population, as well as on aspiring homeowners and developers. The contributors look at the effect on the widening of wealth gaps, slower economic growth, and threats to political and social stability. Though focusing on China, the editors also present discussions of specific policy design challenges encountered in Australia, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries, Singapore, Taiwan, the UK, and the US. This book would be of interest to housing policy makers, as well as academics who are studying the social and political effects of the Chinese housing market.