state of the world's cities 2012/2013 - United Nations Sustainable ...

Productivity and the Prosperity of Citiesmajor determinants in any city’s operational productivity.In addition, cities at intermediate levels of developmentshould also enhance their technological capacities with asharper focus on higher education and training as well asICT infrastructure.While the factors at work are less easy to grasp thanin the case of technical efficiency, experience from aroundthe world points to the importance of supporting researchand development in quality higher education and researchinstitutions with both public and corporate investment.Promoting an entrepreneurial spirit, particularly amongyouth, is a desirable strategy for any city, regardless ofdevelopment level or economic strength. Similarly, farfrom a desirable though ultimately dispensable aspiration,enhancing overall quality of life should be considered asessential to any economic development strategy if a city is toattract creative people and businesses.Leadership will always be always a critical factor,be it collective, as exercised through sound governancesystems, or individual, i.e. relying on a particularly inspiringpolitician or local figure.It takes leadership tochange the prevailing urbanparadigm and developthe transformative visionthat will not just boostproductivity of a city, orregion, or even country, butalso broadly distribute theassociated benefits for thesake of shared prosperity.policypolicyTo be able tosustain higherwages and the associatedstandards of living, moreadvanced cities need totap into innovation-drivenproductivity gains bysupporting businesses’ability to compete basedon more sophisticatedand innovative productionprocesses and products.To enhance productivity, cities at all stages ofdevelopment must seek support from a wide rangeof stakeholders, including various public authorities, other urbanareas in the same region, and major economic actors, and set inmotion the process of desirable change.Endnotes1 Bodin-Buyle Z., and C. Hermant-De Callataÿ (2011), Urban Prosperity and Quality ofLife in European cities – Beyond GDP, Background paper prepared for “State of theWorld’s Cities Report 2012/2013” as part of EU /UN-Habitat collaboration.2 UN-Habitat (2010), State of the World’s Cities 2010/2011 : Cities for All: Bridging theUrban Divide.,Earthscan,London3 European Commission (2009) Promoting Sustainable Urban Development in Europe:Achievements and Opportunities. European Commission , Brussels4 World Bank (2012) World Bank Data: World Development Indicators & Global DevelopmentFinance, Online database last updated July 9 2012, http://data.worldbank.org5 Buckley, R. and A. Kallergis (2011) The Wealth of Cities and Equitable Growth,background paper for ‘State of the World Cities Report 2012/13’6 Buckley, R. and A. Kallergis (2011) op. cit.7 Buckley, R. and A. Kallergis (2011) op. cit.8 PricewaterhouseCoopers (2009) ‘Global city GDP rankings 2008-2025’PricewaterhouseCoopers UK Economic Outlook, November 2009, London. http://www.ukmediacentre.pwc.com/Media-Library/Global-city-GDP-rankings-2008-2025-61a.aspx9 Cities Alliance (2006) Guide to City Development Strategies: Improving UrbanPerformance, Cities Alliance, Washington, D.C. http://www.citiesalliance.org/ca/sites/citiesalliance.org/files/CA_Docs/resources/cds/cds-guidelines/role_of_cities.pdf10 Kenya’s 2008 GDP (PPP current International), total population, population in thelargest city: World Development Indicators (2012); Nairobi’s 2008 GDP (PPP):PricewaterhouseCoopers (2009).11 PricewaterhouseCoopers (2009) op. cit.12 UN-Habitat (2008) State of the World’s Cities Report 2008/09: Harmonious Cities.UN-Habitat, Nairobi.13 ActiveUKChina (2012) Business and economic distributions and clusters, http://www.activeukchina.com/business-environment/business-and-economic-distributionsand-clusters/14 UN-Habitat (2008) op. cit.15 This section draws heavily from Turok, I. (2011) Urban Employment and the Prosperity ofCities. Background paper prepared for “State of the World’s Cities Report 2012/2013”16 As noted by Turok, see Jacobs,J. (1969) The Economy of Cities, London, JonathanCape; Jacobs, J. (1984) Cities and the Wealth of Nations, New York, Random House;Porter, M. (1998) ‘Clusters and the new economics of competitiveness’, HarvardBusiness Review, December, pp.77-90.17 Bloomberg Business Week, April 23, 2011 as quoted by Buckley, R. and A. Kallergis(2011) op. cit.18 Rio’s Operation Centre builds upon advanced technologies created by IBM Researchlabs around the world.19 Astroman (2011) City Government and IBM Close Partnership to Make Riode Janeiro a Smarter City, January 3, http://www.astroman.com.pl/index.php?mod=magazine&a=read&id=87120 Spirou, C. (2011) Urban Tourism and Urban Change: Cities in a Global Economy, NewYork, Routledge,21 Mena, A. (2011) City Report on Doha. Unpublished UN-Habitat background study for“State of the World’s Cities Report 2012/2013”22 Kurtul,P. F. (2011) City Report on Gaziantep. Unpublished UN-Habitat backgroundstudy for “State of the World’s Cities Report 2012/2013”23 Al-Bassam, D. and J. Mouris (2011) City Report on Dubai. Unpublished UN-Habitatbackground study for “State of the World’s Cities Report 2012/2013”24 Liu, Y. and Y. Wang (2011) City Report on Chongqing. Unpublished UN-Habitatbackground study for “State of the World’s Cities Report 2012/2013”25 PricewaterhouseCoopers (2010) Cities of opportunities. PricewaterhouseCoopers/The Partnership for New York City, Inc. http://www.pwc.com/us/en/cities-ofopportunity/2011/pdfdownload.jhtml26 China’s urban growth rates: UNDESA (WUP): US’ and Great Britain’s urban growthrates: Buckley, R. and A. Kallergis (2011) op. cit.27 J Jin, L. and Y. Liu (2011) City Report on Shenzhen. Unpublished UN-Habitatbackground study for “State of the World’s Cities Report 2012/2013”.28 PricewaterhouseCoopers (2009) op. cit.47