Urban economics for the developing world: an introduction

This is an introduction to the special issue of the Journal of Urban Economics on “Urbanization in Developing Countries: Past and Present”. We argue that the rapid urbanization and the rise of cities in the developing world demand new avenues of research and much more research to deal with the urban issues facing billions of people across the world that current work barely covers. This issue contains papers which move in that direction and signals a commitment by the journal to pursue this agenda.