Agglomeration Index : Towards a New Measure of Urban Concentration

A common challenge in analyzing urbanization is the data. The United Nations compiles information on urbanization (urban population and its share of total national population) that is reported by various countries yet there is no standardized definition of "urban." This situation is partic...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Uchida, Hirotsugu, Nelson, Andrew
Language:	English
Published:	Washington, DC: World Bank 2012
Subjects:	World Development Report 2009
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9039

id	okr-10986-9039
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-90392021-04-23T14:02:44Z Agglomeration Index : Towards a New Measure of Urban Concentration Uchida, Hirotsugu Nelson, Andrew World Development Report 2009 A common challenge in analyzing urbanization is the data. The United Nations compiles information on urbanization (urban population and its share of total national population) that is reported by various countries yet there is no standardized definition of "urban." This situation is particularly troublesome if one wishes to conduct a cross-country analysis or determine the aggregate urbanization status of regions (such as Asia or Latin America) and the world. This paper proposes an alternative measure of urban concentration that we call an agglomeration index. It is based on three factors: population density, the population of a "large" urban center, and travel time to that large urban center. The main objective is to provide a globally consistent definition of settlement concentration to enable cross-country comparative and aggregated analyses. As an accessible measure of economic density, the agglomeration index lends itself to the study of concepts such as agglomeration rents in urban areas, the �thickness� of a market, and the travel distance to such a market with many workers and consumers. With anticipated advances in remote sensing technology and geo-coded data analysis tools, the agglomeration index can be further refined. 2012-06-26T15:35:09Z 2012-06-26T15:35:09Z 2009 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9039 English CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/ World Bank Washington, DC: World Bank Africa Europe and Central Asia Middle East and North Africa Latin America & Caribbean East Asia and Pacific
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	World Development Report 2009
spellingShingle	World Development Report 2009 Uchida, Hirotsugu Nelson, Andrew Agglomeration Index : Towards a New Measure of Urban Concentration
geographic_facet	Africa Europe and Central Asia Middle East and North Africa Latin America & Caribbean East Asia and Pacific
description	A common challenge in analyzing urbanization is the data. The United Nations compiles information on urbanization (urban population and its share of total national population) that is reported by various countries yet there is no standardized definition of "urban." This situation is particularly troublesome if one wishes to conduct a cross-country analysis or determine the aggregate urbanization status of regions (such as Asia or Latin America) and the world. This paper proposes an alternative measure of urban concentration that we call an agglomeration index. It is based on three factors: population density, the population of a "large" urban center, and travel time to that large urban center. The main objective is to provide a globally consistent definition of settlement concentration to enable cross-country comparative and aggregated analyses. As an accessible measure of economic density, the agglomeration index lends itself to the study of concepts such as agglomeration rents in urban areas, the �thickness� of a market, and the travel distance to such a market with many workers and consumers. With anticipated advances in remote sensing technology and geo-coded data analysis tools, the agglomeration index can be further refined.
author	Uchida, Hirotsugu Nelson, Andrew
author_facet	Uchida, Hirotsugu Nelson, Andrew
author_sort	Uchida, Hirotsugu
title	Agglomeration Index : Towards a New Measure of Urban Concentration
title_short	Agglomeration Index : Towards a New Measure of Urban Concentration
title_full	Agglomeration Index : Towards a New Measure of Urban Concentration
title_fullStr	Agglomeration Index : Towards a New Measure of Urban Concentration
title_full_unstemmed	Agglomeration Index : Towards a New Measure of Urban Concentration
title_sort	agglomeration index : towards a new measure of urban concentration
publisher	Washington, DC: World Bank
publishDate	2012
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9039
_version_	1764408231841497088

Agglomeration Index : Towards a New Measure of Urban Concentration

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