A Synthesis of Global Urbanization Projections

This chapter reviews recent literature on global projections of future urbanization, covering the population, economic and physical extent perspectives. We report on several recent findings based on studies and reports on global patterns of urbanization. Specifically, we review new literature that makes projections about the spatial pattern, rate, and magnitude of urbanization change in the next 30–50 years. While projections should be viewed and utilized with caution, the chapter synthesis reports on several major findings that will have significant socioeconomic and environmental impacts including the following: By 2030, world urban population is expected to increase from the current 3.4 billion to almost 5 billion; Urban areas dominate the global economy – urban economies currently generate more than 90 % of global Gross Value Added; From 2000 to 2030, the percent increase in global urban land cover will be over 200 % whereas the global urban population will only grow by a little over 70 %. Our synthesis of recent projections suggest that between 50%–60% of the total urban land in existence in 2030 will be built in the first three decades of the 21st century. Challenges and limitations of urban dynamic projections are discussed, as well as possible innovative applications and potential pathways towards sustainable urban futures

The Political Economy of Domestic Tax Reform in Bangladesh: Political Settlements, Informal Institutions and the Negotiation of Reform

This paper explains the persistence of a tax system characterised by low revenue collection and extensive informality in Bangladesh. It combines analysis of long-term formal and informal institutions and of micro-level incentives shaping negotiation of short-term reform. The system is unusually informal, discretionary, and corrupt, but remains resistant to change because it delivers low and predictable tax rates to business, extensive opportunities for corruption to the tax administration, and an important vehicle for fundraising by political leaders and rent distribution to their elite supporters. We then explore the dynamics of micro-level reform and external pressure within the constraints of this overarching political bargain

Globalization, uneven development and the North-South ‘big switch’

An apparent ‘big switch’ in attitudes towards and discourse over economic globalization has occurred since the turn of the Millennium. Economic globalization was formerly widely identified as being orchestrated in the interests of the global North. Sceptics, mostly left - leaning, expressed particular concern for its impacts in the global South. However, a recent backlash against globalization has emerged within the global North from the political right, while support for globalization has been expressed within the global South. This ‘big switch’ defies many theoretical predictions, and can be situated in relation to a shifting geography of global uneven developmen

Libya and Europe: imperialism, crisis and migration

This article examines the recent dynamics of European imperialism in Libya in the light of Marx’s theory of the global reserve army of labour. It analyses the limited advance of Western imperialism in Libya in the decade before the 2011 uprisings, the interactions between local, regional and international forces during and after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervention, and, finally, the evolving migratory patterns from Libya. In this light, the instability along the southern and eastern Mediterranean coastline – a product of the uprisings and the forms of political reactions they unleashed – is simultaneously a security threat and a channel of migratory movements to European capitalism