Urbanization has accelerated in the past few decades as thousands daily move to towns and cities in search of a better life, or better education opportunities for their children. Economic development is a natural spur to internal migration, but other factors may be may be in play in recent rapid demographic shifts, not least wider access to information over the Internet.

Slums, overcrowding, traffic congestion, and pollution are familiar signs of urban decay in many major cities. We ask Yang Zhang, ADBI research project consultant, whether these are signs that migration and urbanization have grown too rapidly for urban authorities to handle.

Read the transcript

http://bit.ly/2zvIni4

Read the working paper

https://www.adb.org/publications/accelerating-urbanization-explained-role-information

About the authors

Yan Zhang is an ADBI research project consultant.

Guanghua Wan is a principal economist at the Asian Development Bank.

Know more about ADBI’s research on urbanization:

http://bit.ly/2B1ByVS