THE CITY IN REGIONAL SCIENCE

Dani SheferTechnion – Israel Institute of Technology

International Workshop

Banska Bystrica, Slovakia

August 28-30, 2016

An overview

Regional Science – deals with analytical approaches to

problems that are concerned with Regional, Urban, or

rural issues.

The Trend over the last 65 years

The evolution of the focal point shifted from problems

concerning primarily the Location of Industries

focusing on minimizing transport cost. (Isard, 1956)

Moving-on to the problem of HH location within the

city (Alonso, 1964)

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• Environmental problems – pollution, exhaustible

natural resources etc.

• Transportation – efficient accessibility

• Migration

• Income inequality

• Economic Efficiency

3

• Innovations and Technological Change

• Cultural and environmental amenities

• Well being – quality of life

• Accessibility and opportunities

• Social Services – education and health

• Infrastructure

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Moving from an era of physical networks to an

era of social networks (ICT-Information, and

Communication Technologies)

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World’s Urban Population

1950 746 million

2014 3.9 billion (54% of the world's pop.)

(5.2 times fold)

Forecast

2030 5.0 billion

2050 6.5 billion (66% of the world's pop.)

In 35 years a huge increase of 2.5 billion additional urban population

Source: World Urbanization Prospects (2014 Revision) United Nations

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MEGA-CITIES* (2014)

Tokyo 38 million

Delhi 25 million

Mexico City 21 million

Mumbai 21 million

Sao Paulo 21 million

Osaka 20 million

Beijing 21 million

New York 18.5 million

Source: World Urbanization Prospects (2014 Revision) United Nation8

Major Urban Problems – The Challenges

• Housing (affordable)

• Transportation (mobility) alternative public

transportation modes – Subways, Light rail, BRT, Buses

• Pollution abatements from motor vehicles

• Employment opportunities for unskilled, skilled, and

highly skilled labor force (job training programs etc.)

• Income inequality – within and between cities

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• Migration (inter and intra-country)

• Education (opportunities)

• Health Care (accessibility)

• Infrastructure (energy, water, Sanitation - sewage)

• Formulating equitable and sustainable urban

development programs10

Conclusion

• Our research effort focuses primarily on measuring phenomena with some explanations

• It is high time to put greater emphasis on formulating urban development policies that will help resolve some of these problems

• Clearly urban development policies by and large are not universal. They are region-specific (European, African, Latin America etc.) country-specific and also city-specific.

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THANK YOU

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