Critical Commentary. The World Development Report 2009
Deborah Fahy, Katherine V. Gough, Jonathan Rig & Jytte Agergaard
Publication Date: 2009-04-01
Number of Pages: 17

Over the past 25 years, the World Bank has annually published reports on world economic development with wide-ranging themes. Two have showcased agriculture and rural development, but the 2009 report is the first to place urban areas centre stage. Unlike the rural reports, which had copious references to concrete rural development problems and policies, this year’s World Development Report (WDR09) is a celebration of the theoretical concept of agglomeration and its influence in creating population aggregations in urban settlements. The report introduces and popularises what is now known as the ‘new economic geography’ (NEG) (Krugman, 1995; Fujita et al., 1999; Martin, 1999). This is a relatively recently established branch of economics which has gained salience with the award of the 2008 Nobel prize to one of its leading theorists, Paul Krugman. NEG draws heavily on geographical concepts without the nuances that geographers usually deploy when using central place theory. The WDR09 makes exceptionally bold statements about the significance of agglomeration to urban demographic and economic change.