Mobility and Affluence

Over the past week, my research of Brazil's favelas gradually shifted into an exploration of the relationship between wealth, property ownership and infrastructure. Of particular interest was a paper written by Jean-Claude Ziv & Wendell Cox, Megacities and Affluence: Transport & Land Use Considerations; June 2007. A PDF version of the article is available here: www.publicpurpose.com/ut-wctrs2007.pdf . Regardless of how one might feel about the paper's conservative viewpoint (the authors oppose "smart growth" strategies in urban planning and question the effectiveness of developing massive public transit systems for the megacities of the future), the article does provides a number of definitions and assumptions that might serve as useful departure points in future discussions. I will share these highlights below:

"It can be argued that the principle purpose of cities is economic growth and the reduction or even eradication of poverty." (p. 2)

A megacity is defined in the article as, "cities of 10,000,000 or greater in population." The authors then dissect the various levels of the city:

LEVEL 1 - Municipality: the central city of metropolitan area or urban area.
LEVEL 2 - Urban Area (urban agglomeration): the area of continuous urbanization or the urban footprint.
LEVEL 3 - Metropolitan Area: the labour market area.

Throughout the paper, megacities is defined using the "urban area" or "urban agglomeration" definition of "city".

Some other interesting points:

"As urban areas have become more affluent, their cores have tended to decline in population, or at a minimum remain static, while virtually all growth has occurred in the suburbs." (p. 7)

Mobility and Affluence - "An important key to making a megacity function is transport, which plays a crucial role in making markets more efficient and contributing to economic growth and expanding household incomes." (p. 9)

"Prosperity in America has always been strongly related to mobility and poor people work hard for access to opportunities. For both rural and inner-city poor, access means being able to reach the prosperous suburbs of our booming metropolitan economies, and mobility means having the private automobile necessary for the trip." (p. 10)

Personal Mobility - "... provides users with far greater access to jobs and other opportunities throughout the urban area." (p. 13)