'Cities all the way down: a new geographical framework for development' with Prof Luís Bettencourt

Luís Bettencourt argues that cities and urban systems provide a more useful basis for understanding development than national averages and targets. Regional, urban and neighbourhood differences expose limitations of treating countries as uniform units. The proposed framework describes development as expanding physical, social and economic connections and interdependence.

The lecture examines how this approach accounts for empirical patterns across periods and geographies, simultaneous changes in multiple development measures, and heterogeneity at both national and neighbourhood scales. It contrasts national target setting, with its ecological fallacies and distributional effects, with coordinated processes involving innovation communities, infrastructure connectivity and basic services.