This report is organized in foursections. Section one provides an overview of the context inwhich many ECA cities consolidated. This section includes areview of the key factors that shaped the urban systems ofECA, including a discussion of the implication of urbanizingunder planned economies and a discussion of recentdemographic trends (migration and fertility). This sectionalso includes an overview of the contribution of the urbansector to ECA’s economy and the linkages betweenurbanization and economic development. Section two zoomsinto ECA’s urban systems and describes emerging trends inpopulation and economic density using the Cities in ECAdatabase. Among the observed trends, is the emergence of twoopposing patterns in ECA’s urban system: one of (population)growth and one of decline. Section three takes a closer lookat cities, comparing winners to losers, and parses throughunderlying factors that could explain their relativeposition. Finally, section four touches on the policyimplications of the report’s empirical findings,highlighting how other countries and cities have manageddecline and identifies potential follow-up work. The reportis based on a unique city-level database that covers morethan 5,000 cities in the region. The report does not intendto provide country specific or in-depthassessment at thesub-regional level, does not cover other angles of interest(firm-level analysis, household-level analysis) or providean in-depth analysis of policy implications. These are bothlimitations, and potential follow-up activities. However,the report is complemented by 17 country-level snapshots,which describe in detail country specific trends.
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