The Politics of Consumption City Growth

• In Event: Population and Politics

Abstract

The nature of urban growth in the developing world has changed as the service sector has become dominant. Earlier patterns of city growth based on industrial production have been replaced by the rise of “consumption” cities that benefit from exports from the primary sector. Urban concentration has declined as secondary “consumption” cities have grown relative to primate cities. We document the rise of consumption cities in Latin America using remote sensed data from nightlight and population estimates during the period 1992-2020. We then examine the politics of city growth, observing which cities saw growth in this period, and how policies made at the national level contributed to that growth. We link data on city growth to transformations in the national economy and political inputs, especially infrastructure investments and interregional transfers. We find that consumption city growth was particularly likely when countries experienced commodity booms, and when presidents needed legislative support from commodity dependent regions.

Authors

• Melissa Ziegler Rogers, Claremont Graduate University

• Soha Hammam, Claremont Graduate University