Generative and Parasitic Cities

Cities, Wages, and the Urban Hierarchy

“…Previous effects of higher order cities over lower order cities and vice versa can also be contextualized in the literature of backwash and spread effects (Hoselitz, 1955;Myrdal, 1957;Hirschman, 1957;Henry, Barkley, and Bao, 1997;Chen and Partridge, 2013;Ganning, Baylis, and Lee, 2013). Backwash effects are understood as those negative effects derived from growth of a city on the remaining territory as congestion costs or highqualification human capital migration ("brain drain").…”

The Poverty of Cities in Developing Regions

“…3 Such terms also revive dormant claims of overurbanization in developing countries (Davis and Hertz 1954;Hoselitz 1957), with the modification that human misery in cities, rather than negative consequences for national development, is now viewed as the distinct outcome of this phenomenon. 4 Perceptions of decline in living conditions in big cities are buttressed by recent literature that documents substantial and growing inequality within cities; the benefits of city life are experienced by some but not by others.…”

City-to-city networks: Asian perspectives on key elements and areas for success

“…These trends were received with mixed feelings. Many grew concerned about the characteristics of growth, as cities were seen as ''parasites'' that prey on rural areas (Hoselitz, 1954). Others noted an 'urban bias' (Lipton, 1977) in policy making that created structural problems and kept poor countries poor.…”