2025年8月21日（木曜）12時00分～午後1時15分

ジェトロ・アジア経済研究所　C23会議室 　

The global urban population is forecast to increase from 4.22bn in 2018 to 6.68bn in 2050, with 95% of this increase occurring in countries of the global south. There is good reason for optimism. Historically, GDP per capita and urbanization have increased together. Countries that experienced an acceleration of economic growth, such as China after 1980, also experienced accelerated urbanization (Pritchett, 2014). Cities have historically been drivers of industrialization and economic growth. There are well-established theoretical and empirical reasons to link urbanization to explain these economic benefits – the agglomeration benefits of density. There are two interesting exceptions to this general optimism. Firstly, in Africa, since the 1970s, the link between urbanization and industrialization has broken down (Gollin et al, 2016). Africa is urbanizing when strikingly poorer than other developing regions (Henderson, 2010:156). Unable to afford the necessary infrastructure, African cities are often characterized by contagion (exposure to communicable diseases through poor water, sanitation, and hygiene), crime, and congestion (60% of Africa’s urban population lives in slums, and people spend hours each day in traffic). Secondly, in South Asia there is a relatively slow rate of urbanization. Between 2023 and 2030 for example, the urban population of Pakistan will increase from 93.8m to 99.4m, or from 38.8% to 40.7% of the total population (ADB, 2024). Pakistan has a much lower rate of urbanization that we would expect for a middle income country. Many of the key macroeconomic problems in South Asia, slow pace of structural change (industrialization), slow productivity growth, lack of innovation and upgrading, and slow employment growth can be traced to the slow rate of urbanization. This research explores possible reasons to explain the puzzle of rapid urbanization in Africa and slow urbanization in South Asia (including ‘Urban Pull’, ‘Rural Push’, ‘Ease of Building, ‘Comparative Advantage’, and ‘Relative Rural Poverty’), as a way of helping policymakers think about how to help promote rapid, sustainable, and economically productive urbanization.

Matthew McCartney氏（Africa Urban Lab, African School of Economics-Zanzibar）

永島優