Resource information
The great 21st-century migration into
cities will present both a great challenge for humanity and
a significant opportunity for global economic growth. This
paper describes the diverse patterns that define this
metropolitan migration. It then lays out a framework for
understanding the costs and benefits of new arrivals through
migration's externalities and the challenges and policy
tradeoffs that confront city stakeholders. The paper
concludes by suggesting ways municipalities, by optimizing
flexibility, can make migration more productive and less
destructive in shaping the 'good city' and the
'smart city.' There are few paths to global
economic growth that do not run through cities, and even
fewer that do not depend on growing the city in population
size, scale, and economic exchange. Historically, cities
have grown by concentrating the economic advantages of
number and density, the social potential of innovation, and
the cultural possibilities of newness. By bringing together
the factors of production, land, labor, capital, and
enterprise, in ever more recombinant forms, cities offer the
possibility of securing new economic advantages and scaling
them up.
