Cities are a key driver of national prosperity, producing on average more than half of GDP. They do this by concentrating activity, resources and knowledge to exploit agglomeration effects and economies of scale. These effects are not always present however and can be reduced where cities to not achieve the necessary levels of densification and infrastructure services provision. This paper looks at the journey from urban productivity outcomes to economic growth, the constraints on the growth narrative as well as recommending areas for further research.
Evidence: Urban productivity linkages to economic growth
This work was carried out under the Infrastructure and Cities for Economic Development (ICED) facility.
ICED supported DFID country offices, central teams and ODA-spending Other Government Departments to deliver DFID’s Economic Development Strategy by scaling up programming and investment in infrastructure and cities. It operated between February 2016 and July 2019.
