Urban Economy in the New Millennium

Michael Cohen in this lecture illustrates data about economic growth that demonstrate how cities act as engines of national economic development. In 2008, for the first time in human history, half the world’s population lived in urban areas. Due to agglomeration economies, approximately 80 percent from global GDP is coming out of urban-based economic activities; 600 urban centers generate about 60 percent of global GDP.Michael Cohen (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is Director of the International Affairs Program. Before coming to the New School in 2001, he was a Visiting Fellow of the International Center for Advanced Studies at New York University. From 1972 to 1999, he had a distinguished career at the World Bank. He was responsible for much of the urban policy development of the Bank over that period and, from 1994-1998, he served as the Senior Advisor to the Bank’s Vice-President for Environmentally Sustainable Development. He has worked in over fifty countries and was heavily involved in the Bank’s work on infrastructure, environment, and sustainable development. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Panel on Urban Dynamics. He has taught at the University of California at Berkeley, The Johns Hopkins University, and the School of Architecture, Design, and Urban Planning of the University of Buenos Aires.