Regional development

Urban Development

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About Urban Development

Why does urban development matter?

Cities are important generators of wealth, employment and productivity and are often the engines of their national economies. Half of the population in OECD countries live in predominantly urban regions, rising to almost 80% if less densely populated urban areas are taken into account. Productivity levels are generally higher in metropolitan areas and the increased trade and capital flows give rise to increased flows of people, goods, capital, services and ideas. In many OECD countries, metropolitan regions produce a larger percentage of the national GDP than their representative population percentage.

Competitiveness in urban regions is a major local and national policy objective. Cities increasingly compete with one another to attract innovative investments and knowledge activities. Meanwhile, they have to face negative externalities connected with urbanisation such as inequalities, social cohesion, urban sprawl, congestion, environmental problems, housing shortages and distressed areas.

Addressing the challenges of urban development

Addressing such issues as well as implementing new strategies to foster city attractiveness and competitiveness requires an appropriate metropolitan governance that mobilises all stakeholders from all layers of government as well as from the private sector and civil society.

Urban Development at the OECD

The OECD's Working Party on Territorial Policy in Urban Areas (WPURB) works with the Territorial Development Policy Committee (TDPC) to assess trends and challenges of urban regions; to promote regional competitiveness and achieve a more sustainable urban development; and to address institutional changes needed to enhance the capacity of urban governments, in partnership with civil society and the private sector.

The OECD works on a range of policy areas in order to maximise the potential of urban areas to promote growth, job creation, well-being and innovation.

Cities, Climate Change and Green Growth

Cities, climate change and green growth.

Cities are a central part of the solution for climate change

Today the OECD is actively working with governments to highlight the role of cities to deliver cost-effective policy responses to climate change. Cities are centres of innovation and can advance clean energy systems, sustainable transportation and waste management to reduce greenhouse gases. With access to up-to-date climate science, they can also work with scientists and experts to assess impacts and vulnerability, and with local stakeholders to design and implement effective adaptation strategies to respond to unavoidable impacts of climate change.

Competitive Cities and Climate Change - Regional Development Working Paper

Roundtable of Mayors and Ministers

The Roundtable of Mayors and Ministers

The OECD Roundtable for Mayors and Ministers provides the pre-eminent forum to develop inter-governmental approaches for stronger, more effective urban policy. This video from the 3rd meeting, which focused on “Cities and Green Growth”, features interviews with Bordeaux Mayor Alain Juppé, Copenhagen Lord Mayor Frank Jensen, DKI Jakarta, Governor Fauzi Bowo, Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle, Toronto Mayor David Miller, and Yokohama Mayor Fumiko Hayashi. See the proceedings from the 2010 roundtable.

Port Cities

Port cities programme

The OECD Port-Cities Programme aims to identify how ports can be assets for urban development. The programme therefore assesses the impact of ports on cities and regions. It also compares policies aimed at increasing positive regional impacts of ports and limiting negative effects.

An ongoing series of case studies analyses the impact of various port cities and assesses policy and governance challenges. The most recent case study focusses on the city of Mersin, Turkey.

Measuring Urban Areas

The OECD Metropolitan Database

Territorial statistics and indicators are fundamental tools for enhancing cross-cities comparability and improving the analysis and evaluation of policies. This database provides statistics on 90 large metropolitan areas in the OECD countries and shows how these regions have changed over the past decade. Available statistics include population, elderly dependency rate, labour force, employment, unemployment, GDP per capita and PCT patent applications.

Consult the web page on Regional Statistics and Indicators for more information on how metropolitan regions are defined and examples of how OECD eXplorer can help to understand regional responses for global challenges.

Functional urban areas

Understanding urban areas and creating a common definition of an urban area is a necessary basis for comparison of economic, social and environmental performance of urban areas. The OECD and EU have developed a harmonised definition of "functional areas".

Profiles of the functional urban areas in OECD countries are available.

Rural-Urban Partnerships

RURBAN project

Urban and rural areas have different assets that are often complementary and interact within the spatial context of functional regions. These connections between urban and rural areas can improve the exploitation of existing resources as well as increasing the potential of regions in terms of economic activities, well being and equity in the provision of services. The OECD, in collaboration with the European Commission, is using a new analytical framework to assess urban-rural linkages and to help identify the governance forms that will enhance urban-rural interactions. The project focuses on "functional regions"– defined in terms of economic and social activities rather than administrative boundaries – so as to better reflect the true spectrum of rural-urban links. The framework takes into account a broad range of urban-rural interactions, both in terms of socio-economic linkages and governance arrangements. It is based on a matrix that has a spatial dimension (metropolitan regions, network of small and medium-sized cities; and sparsely populated areas with market towns) and a functional dimension (service provision, environmental quality, amenities, and governance).

Events

The analysis of urban development is complemented with input from a series of international conferences gathering a large number of international experts, politicians, mayors and ministers, bureaucrats and practitioners, journalists as well as representatives from international organisations, the business sector and the civil society.

Conferences on Regional Development

Publications

OECD work on cities, urban and metropolitan regions, has led to a number of Territorial Reviews on urban regions (metropolitan areas and city-regions), specific chapters in National Territorial Reviews and thematic publications on globalisation and city competitiveness and attractiveness, infrastructure, housing and environment, as well as social cohesion and distressed areas.

Click on the image to read the publication		Chile: Urban Policy Review (2013) The Urban Policy Review of Chile examines Chile's significant transformation in the past three decades, including growth in GDP, population levels and urbanisation. This growth has been a key factor in Chile’s success in reaching an improved quality of life. However, Chile ranks lower than many other OECD member countries on a variety of urban-related quality-of-life factors, such as income, housing, jobs and the environment. Chile’s urban and metropolitan development practices have traditionally been sector-driven, and today the need for well-integrated approaches to urbanism are increasingly recognised among urban policy makers. This report examines the economic and socio-economic trends in Chile’s urban areas including population growth, and mounting inequality; it analyses four policy areas with significant implications for national urban programming, specifically land-use and zoning, housing, public transport, and the environment; and it examines possible approaches for revitalising the urban governance structure in metropolitan and urban areas, as well as mechanisms to reinforce strategic planning and service-delivery capacity.
Click on the image to read the publication		Korea : Urban Policy Review (2012) This Urban Policy Review of Korea assesses Korea’s approach to sustainable urban development as expressed in its recent urban policy reform and national green growth agenda. The government has responded to the economic, environmental and social challenges that have resulted from Korea’s rapid urbanisation process with, on the one hand, urban policy reform based on qualitative urban management and urban competitiveness and, on the other hand, the adoption of a National Strategy for Green Growth that emphasises the role of cities in achieving stronger environmental and economic outcomes. The Review proposes a series of recommendations designed to advance Korea’s sustainable urban policy approach, which include (i) developing a comprehensive, multi-sectoral approach to urban development that is tailored to the different needs of urban areas, (ii) closing the gaps between expected and actual outcomes in urban planning, (iii) maximising economic efficiency in the building and transportation sectors and (iv) improving policy co-ordination across public agencies.
Click on the image to read the publication		The Chicago Tri-State Metropolitan Area, United States: Territorial Review (2012) The OECD Territorial Review of the Chicago Tri-State metropolitan area, the first of its kind conducted by the OECD in the United States, assesses the region’s capacity to contribute effectively to regional and national economic performance and quality of life. The Review focuses on four thematic policy issues: i) the effectiveness and coordination of workforce development programmes in the Chicago Tri-State metro-region; ii) the metro-region’s capacity for innovation; iii) its role as a major centre for logistics in North America; and (iv) its capacity to encourage green growth over the long term. The review also focuses on the state of region-wide institutional collaboration and offers a vision for effective tri-state region-wide stakeholder engagement.
Click on the image to read the publication		Skane, Sweden Territorial Review The OECD Territorial Review of Skåne assesses the capacity of the third largest region in Sweden to compete for investment and talents in an increasingly globalised economy. Skåne has long been one of the three major engines of national growth and it ranks among the top-class research and technology hubs in the OECD, but it needs to gain back the momentum it lost during the crisis. The region's strong knowledge assets and demographic dynamism have not translated into corresponding gains in terms of productivity and skills. The Review shows the way forward towards a smart, healthy and inclusive region and calls for targeted policies to boost demand-driven innovation, make the most of its diversified pool of human capital, and maintain a high quality environment to work and live in.

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