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Join Penn IUR and World Bank experts for a discussion on the new report “Pancakes to Pyramids: City Form to Promote Sustainable Growth,” which demonstrates links between an ongoing increase in global urban density and productivity.
The event will be introduced by Sameh Wahba, Global Director, Urban, Disaster Risk Management, Resilience and Land Global Practice, World Bank, followed by presentations by report co-authors Somik Lall, Global Lead, Territorial and Spatial Development and Lead Urban Economist, Urban, Disaster Risk Management, Resilience and Land Global Practice, World Bank, and Daniel Sturm, Professor of Economics, London School of Economics.
A discussion featuring Solly Angel, Professor of City Planning, Marron Institute of Urban Management, NYU; Edgar Pieterse, Director, African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town; Shipra Narang Suri, Chief, Urban Practices Branch, UN-Habitat; and Gilles Duranton, Dean's Chair in Real Estate Professor, The Wharton School, will follow. Penn IUR Co-Director Susan Wachter will serve as moderator.
Sameh Wahba is the Global Director for the World Bank’s Urban, Disaster Risk Management, Resilience and Land Global Practice, based in Washington, D.C. The Global Practice covers territorial development and geospatial and results-based-financing issues and has a portfolio nearly $30 billion in commitments in investment projects, program-for-results and development policy lending. Prior to this, Mr. Wahba served as the Director for Urban and Territorial Development, Disaster Risk Management and Resilience at the World Bank Group’s Social, Urban Rural, and Resilience Global Practice, where he oversaw the formulation of the World Bank’s strategy, design, and delivery of all lending, technical assistance, policy advisory activities, and partnerships at the global level. He also served as Practice Manager for the Urban and Disaster Risk Management unit in Africa and the Global Urban and Resilience Unit, and as Acting Director of Operations and Strategy for the Global Practice. He worked as Sustainable Development Sector Leader for Brazil, based in Brasilia, and as an urban specialist focused on housing, land, local economic development, and municipal management and service delivery in Latin America and the Caribbean as well as the Middle East and North Africa Regions. Prior to joining the World Bank in 2004, he worked at the Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies in Rotterdam and at the Harvard Center for Urban Development Studies. Mr. Wahba holds a Ph.D. in urban planning from Harvard University.
Somik Lall is the World Bank’s global lead for territorial and spatial development and lead urban economist for the World Bank’s Urban, Disaster Risk Management, Resilience and Land Global Practice. Mr. Lall joined the World Bank in 1999 and today is a recognized expert on job creation and productivity in cities, development of lagging areas, and enhancing economic outcomes with transport connectivity. He advises national and sub-national governments on key policy issues. He previously founded the World Bank’s Urbanization Reviews program. He leads a Global Solutions Group that focuses on developing spatially coordinated multi-sector investments to support development of specific areas. The group is actively engaged in 42 countries worldwide.
Daniel Sturm is a Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at the London School of Economics (LSE) and a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). He received his PhD in Economics from LSE in 2001. Prior to joining the LSE in 2006, he was an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Munich. Professor Sturm's current research focusses on modelling the agglomeration and dispersion forces that shape the distribution of economic activity both within and across cities. His work has been published in leading academic journals, including the American Economic Review, Econometrica, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, and Review of Economics and Statistics. He won the 2018 Frisch Medal for the paper 'The Economics of Density: Evidence from the Berlin Wall' together with Gabriel Ahlfeldt, Steve Redding, and Nikolaus Wolf and his research is currently supported by a five-year Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC).
Solly Angel is a Professor of City Planning at the Marron Institute where he leads the NYU Urban Expansion Program. He is an international expert on housing and urban development policy, having written extensively on the subject, advised the United Nations, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and implemented projects on the ground. He currently focuses on documenting urban expansion and densification in a global sample of cities, as well as on advising rapidly growing cities on how to prepare adequate room for their inevitable expansion while making adequate room for the densification of their existing footprints as well. He holds a doctorate in city and regional planning from the University of California, Berkeley.
Edgar Pieterse is founding director of the African Centre for Cities (ACC) at the University of Cape Town and holder of the DST/NRF South African Research Chair in Urban Policy. His research and teaching gravitates around urban development politics, everyday culture, publics, responsive design and adaptive governance systems. Edgar’s most recent books are: New Urban Worlds: Inhabiting Dissonant Times (2017); African Cities Reader III: Land, Property & Value (2015), and Africa’s Urban Revolution (2014). He regularly provides advisory services to international development agencies such as: UN-Habitat, African Development Bank, DBSA, National Planning Commission, OECD urban division and UNEP. Edgar holds a PhD from the London School of Economics.
Shipra Narang Suri leads UN-Habitat’s Urban Practices Branch, which is the hub for UN-Habitat’s normative work and the home of its portfolio of global programmes. The work of the Branch covers all major areas of UN-Habitat’s work such as national urban policies; policy, legislation and governance; urban planning and design; public space; urban regeneration; land, housing and shelter; urban economy and finance; urban basic services; safer cities; human rights and social inclusion, with extensive normative work and operational activities in nearly 80 countries. She holds a PhD in Post-War Recovery Studies from the University of York, UK.
Gilles Duranton is a professor of real estate and holds the Dean’s Chair in Real Estate. He joined Wharton in 2012 after holding academic positions at the University of Toronto and the London School of Economics. His research focuses on urban and transportation issues. His work is concerned with land use, urban growth and the estimation of the costs and benefits of cities and clusters. He is also interested in the effects of transportation infrastructure on urban development and the evaluation of local policies. He obtained his PhD in economics jointly from the London School of Economics and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris.
Mathilde Lebrand is an Economist in the World Bank’s Transport Global Practice. Currently she is working on the Belt and Road Initiative, economic corridor development, and connectivity. Previously she worked for the Europe and Central Asia Chief Economist's office and contributed to several regional studies. Her research focuses on economic geography, international trade and global value chains, networks, and political economy. She has taught at the University of Montreal and has worked at the World Trade Organization in Geneva. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from the European University Institute.
