Determinants of Urbanization: A Comparative Analysis Across Global Cities

Amal, Nair and Sabyasachi, Tripathi (2025): Determinants of Urbanization: A Comparative Analysis Across Global Cities.

Abstract

Rapid urbanization has catalyzed economic growth, especially for developing nations, and their urban populations have seen a dramatic rise, hence requiring an understanding of and policymaking on socioeconomic issues. The paper presents important factors that determine the population growth in major urban agglomerations around the world with over 5 million inhabitants. The determinants of urban population size in 2020 and population growth rates from 2010-2020 were analyzed using OLS and quantile regression models based on data with geographical, environmental, demographic, political, and infrastructural variables. The main results show that proximity to transportation infrastructure, annual temperature, initial population size, population density, and the number of educational institutions are essential facilitating factors for urban populations. In contrast, port city status, annual precipitation, and CO2 emissions show negative impacts. Many of these same factors are also significant in population growth rates, though state capital status and congestion in traffic flow negatively relate to growth. The results indicate a complex variety of factors that shape global urban growth and imply some policy directions for sustainable urban development investments in education, environmental protection, and transport infrastructure. This research contributes to understanding the dynamics of global urbanization.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Urban population growth, Demographic factors, Environmental variables, Infrastructure, Sustainable urban development.
• Subjects: O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O18 - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis ; Housing ; Infrastructure; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R1 - General Regional Economics > R11 - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R1 - General Regional Economics > R12 - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity

References

Abhishek, N., Jenamani, M., & Mahanty, B. (2017). Urban growth in Indian cities: Are the driving forces really changing?. Habitat International, 69, 48-57.

About Traffic Indexes. (n.d.). Cost of Living. Retrieved July 26, 2024, from https://www.numbeo.com/traffic/indices_explained.jsp

Baum-Snow, N. (2007). Did highways cause suburbanization?. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122(2), 775-805.

Cheshire, P. C., & Magrini, S. (2006). Population growth in European cities: Weather matters–but only nationally. Regional Studies, 40(1), 23-37.

Croxford, R. (2016). Quantile Regression versus Ordinary Least Squares Regression.

DESA, U. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. 2018. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision. Online Edition.

Duranton, G., & Puga, D. (2004). Micro-foundations of urban agglomeration economies. In Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics (Vol. 4, pp. 2063-2117). Elsevier.

Duranton, G., & Puga, D. (2013). The growth of cities. CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP9590, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2309234.

Duranton, G., & Turner, M. A. (2012). Urban growth and transportation. Review of Economic Studies, 79(4), 1407-1440.

Fang, C., & Yu, D. (2017). Urban agglomeration: An evolving concept of an emerging phenomenon. Landscape and Urban Planning, 162, 126-136.

Florida, R. (2002). The rise of the creative class. Brilliance Audio.

Glaeser, E. (2012). Triumph of the city: How our greatest invention makes us richer, smarter, greener, healthier, and happier. Penguin.

Glaeser, E. L., & Resseger, M. G. (2010). The complementarity between cities and skills. Journal of Regional Science, 50(1), 221-244.

Glaeser, E. L., & Saiz, A. (2003). The rise of the skilled city. Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs 5, 47-94.

Glaeser, E. L., Scheinkman, J., & Shleifer, A. (1995). Economic growth in a cross-section of cities. Journal of Monetary Economics, 36(1), 117-143.

Grimes, A., Apatov, E., Lutchman, L., & Robinson, A. (2014). Infrastructure's long-lived impact on urban development: Theory and empirics. Motu Working Paper 14-11 Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.

Habitat, U. N. (2013). State of the world's cities 2012/2013: Prosperity of cities. Routledge.

Henderson, J. V., & Wang, H. G. (2007). Urbanization and city growth: The role of institutions. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 37(3), 283-313.

Kahn, M. E., & Walsh, R. (2015). Cities and the Environment. Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, 5, 405-465.

Kantakumar, L. N., Kumar, S., & Schneider, K. (2020). What drives urban growth in Pune? A logistic regression and relative importance analysis perspective. Sustainable Cities and Society, 60, 102269.

Li, H., Wei, Y. D., Liao, F. H., & Huang, Z. (2015). Administrative hierarchy and urban land expansion in transitional China. Applied Geography, 56, 177-186.

Lin, G. C., & Yi, F. (2011). Urbanization of capital or capitalization on urban land? Land development and local public finance in urbanizing China. Urban Geography, 32(1), 50-79.

Li, X., Zhou, Y., Asrar, G. R., Imhoff, M., & Li, X. (2017). The surface urban heat island response to urban expansion: A panel analysis for the conterminous United States. Science of the Total Environment, 605, 426-435.

Mahey, K., & Tripathi, S. (2016). Urbanization and economic growth in Punjab (India): An empirical analysis. MPRA Paper No. 71325.

Mayer, H., Sager, F., Kaufmann, D., & Warland, M. (2016). Capital city dynamics: Linking regional innovation systems, locational policies and policy regimes. Cities, 51, 11-20.

Nations, U. (2018). The World’s Cities in 2018—Data Booklet. New York: Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division.

OECD (2024). "Built-up area" (indicator), https://doi.org/10.1787/7c06b772-en (accessed on 26 July 2024).

Popescu, A. I. (2012). Branding cities as educational centres. The role of higher education institutions. Management & marketing, 7(3).

Sassen, S. (2020). “The Impact of the New Technologies and Globalization on Cities”: from Arie Graafland and Deborah Hauptmann, eds., Cities in Transition (2001). In The City Reader (pp. 613-621). Routledge.

Seto, K. C., Güneralp, B., & Hutyra, L. R. (2012). Global forecasts of urban expansion to 2030 and direct impacts on biodiversity and carbon pools. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(40), 16083-16088.

Sridhar, K. S. (2010, March). Determinants of city growth and output in India. In Review of Urban & Regional Development Studies: Journal of the Applied Regional Science Conference (Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 22-38). Melbourne, Australia: Blackwell Publishing Asia.

Suzuki, T., & Muromachi, Y. (2010). Empirical analysis on the railroad development impact on local population density in Japan. Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, 8, 1039-1052.

Thakur, B. K., Rudra, S., & Sarkar, R. (2020). Assessment of urban growth in relation to urban sprawl. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 41(24), 9495-9521.

Tripathi, S. (2013). Do large agglomerations lead to economic growth? Evidence from urban India. In Review of Urban & Regional Development Studies: Journal of the Applied Regional Science Conference, 25 (3), 176-200.

Tripathi, S. (2019). Macroeconomic determinants of housing prices: a cross country level analysis. Available at https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/98089/ (Accessed on 22 march 2025)

Tripathi, S. (2021). Towards sustainable urban system through the development of small towns in India. Regional Science Policy & Practice, 13(3), 777-798.

Zhang, Z., Su, S., Xiao, R., Jiang, D., & Wu, J. (2013). Identifying determinants of urban growth from a multi-scale perspective: A case study of the urban agglomeration around Hangzhou Bay, China. Applied Geography, 45, 193-202.