This paper provides a recent account of the distribution of manufacturing activity across cities in the U.S. After years of nationwide decline in manufacturing employment, and migration of manufacturing plants to suburbs and rural areas, the following pattern emerges for overall manufacturing as of 1990: i) Number of manufacturing establishments increases more than proportionally with city popu...

I 2008, the proportion of the world’s population living in urban areas crossed the 50% mark. The current rates of urbanization suggest that in China, 870 million people — more than half the population — will be living in cities within less than a decade, and the capital of Botswana, Gaborone, will grow from 186,000 to 500,000 inhabitants by 2020.1 Most observers believe that essentially all pop...

Introduction Today it is generally the case that urban dwellers enjoy higher life expectancy than their rural counterparts, globally. This urban advantage is partly attributable to the higher average incomes of urban dwellers, as well as superior access to public health services, including water supply and sewage disposal, and medical services. However this was not the historical norm. In the s...

More than half of the world’s population and the majority of its capital assets are found in urban settlements. Maintaining these centres relies upon chains of consumption that pull in water, food and energy, and export waste. Urban influence is felt far beyond administrative boundaries through migration and the impact of urban demands on rural markets and livelihoods – opening opportunities bu...

A cross the developing world, rural-to-urban migration (i.e. internal as opposed to international migration) is probably the most important demographic phenomenon at this time. In the past year the global population has become 50% urbanized, and Africa is well on the way, and will attain that milestone in two more decades, although with considerable country variation. Asia will attain it five y...

Large rural-urban child mortality differentials in many developing countries suggest that rural families can improve their children's survival chances by leaving the countryside and settling in towns and cities. This study uses data from Demographic and Health Surveys in 17 countries to assess the impact of maternal rural-urban migration on the survival chances of children under age two in the ...