ICT Policy For Networked Society - Ericsson

Understanding the effects and benefits of ICT on nations
has been the standard way of analyzing the impact of
ICT for decades. However, increasingly the impact of
ICT must be understood within a city, business and
citizen framework because doing so allows for more
meaningful comparisons. [xi] If we take the example of
a city framework we can observe the following. Firstly
cities represent a more universally comparable context
compared to the more commonly used nation based
frameworks. Comparing London with Shanghai makes
more sense than comparing the UK with China. Hence
a city focus provides opportunities for a faster learning
and global best practice sharing. Secondly, already
today more than 50% of the world’s population lives
in urban areas and by 2030 the number is expected to
grow above 60%. There is a steady stream of people
moving from the countryside to the cities. The global
urban population increases by over 5 million people
every month, equivalent to the size of Miami or Sydney.
Today more than 20 cities in the world are classified as
8
mega cities with more than 10 million inhabitants. By
the next decade at least eight additional mega cities
will emerge, with half of them located in the developing
countries. [xii]
No matter the path of economic development
a country has chosen, urbanization remains an
inevitable outcome of this effort across the world. [xiii]
Increased urbanization leads to increasing influence for
cities. According to McKinsey Global Institute, the 600
largest cities account for more than 50% of the world’s
GDP but only 22% of the global population. At the
same time it is the medium-sized cities with populations
ranging from 150 thousand to 10 million that are
predicted to account for the largest growth in terms of
GDP up to 2025. This highlights the fact that it is not only
the mega cities that will drive development but many big
cities will take part in shaping society going forward.