The 2009 WDR will present the principal stylized facts of the spatial transformations during development, assess the forces underlying these transformations, and discuss the policies that can facilitate them. It will be structured in three parts:
Part I will describe the rural-urban transformation; the evolution of gaps between lagging and leading regions within countries; and the divergence between countries within world-regions. It will also summarize the policy debates associated with these developments.
Part II will identify the primary forces driving these long-term changes, using insights afforded by economic analysis and history. It will highlight the interactions between economies of scale and concentration; the movements of people and capital that help to realize gains from scale and concentration; and the ease of transport and communication that make concentration possible or unnecessary.
Part III will propose policies to shape these transformations, to take advantage of the spatial concentration that accompanies the growth of urban areas, leading regions, and well-connected countries, while addressing the distributional concerns that arise for rural areas, poor regions, and isolated countries.
The report will be published in late 2008.
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