2026· AlterEconomics· Vol 23, pp. 477-494· 0 citations
Abstract
Urbanization has long been viewed as a driver of economic growth through agglomeration economies. However, emerging challenges such as digital transformation and climate change call into question the universality of this relationship. A major gap in the literature is the limited integration of digital and environmental factors in explaining nonlinear urbanization–growth effects, as previous reviews (e.g., Gilles Duranton and Diego Puga, 2023) focus mainly on traditional mechanisms. This review therefore examines the evolution of the urbanization–growth nexus, identifies critical thresholds, evaluates the roles of digitalization and climate factors, and proposes a new conceptual framework. Following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines, searches were conducted in Web of Science, Scopus, EconLit, RePEc/IDEAS, and Google Scholar using Boolean search strings. From 3,892 records, 186 peer-reviewed studies published between 1960 and 2024 were selected. These studies linked urbanization indicators (e.g., population density and city size) to growth outcomes (e.g., GDP and productivity), while accounting for digital or environmental moderators. The findings reveal three distinct phases. Between 1960 and 2000, urbanization showed strong positive effects on growth. From 2000 to 2015, growth effects remained broadly linear during the period of rapid urbanization in China, India, and parts of Southeast Asia. After 2015, however, the relationship became increasingly conditional, with average agglomeration elasticities declining from 0.05 to 0.03. Digital infrastructure was found to increase urbanization benefits by 8–15 %, whereas environmental degradation reduced them by 4–12 %. Building on these findings, the review proposes a novel multiplicative framework in which net agglomeration benefits depend on physical density, amplified by digital (D) and environmental (E) multipliers. This framework helps explain why mid-sized smart and sustainable cities often outperform megacities in generating economic gains. Overall, the review confirms that urbanization can continue to support economic growth, but primarily in cities that are both digitally advanced and environmentally sustainable. Key limitations include geographic biases in the existing literature. Future research should therefore focus on identifying the causal effects of 5G and net-zero initiatives through experimental methods and harmonized measurement indices.
Over the past two decades, Asia's economic transformation has driven by digitalization and urbanization, and yet its environmental impact remains insufficiently understood. Using panel data from 22 Asian countries between 2000 and 2021, this study investigates whether internet usage influences carbon emissions and whether urbanization (urban population) amplifies this effect. The results reveal that urbanization intensifies the environmental impact of internet usage (digitalization). Testing for endogeneity concerns using a quasi-natural experiment, the results confirm that the moderating effect persists under stable economic conditions; however, the impact is not prominent during crises such as COVID-19. The discoveries emphasize the growing challenge of integrating digital expansion, rapid urban development, and environmental sustainability. More importantly, the study highlights the need for synchronization between environmental engineering strategies and urban planning methods that align with digital infrastructure. This evidence contributes to the debate on sustainable urban transitions in emerging economies and offers insights into how environmental engineering and urban planning can reduce the environmental pressure of digitalization.
Mohd Ashari Bakri, Masnun Al Mahi, Abdul Rahim Ridzuan· E3S Web of Conferences· 0 citations
Rapid urbanization and intensifying climate extremes are increasing pressure on conventional urban drainage systems, accelerating interest in digital transformation. Yet how such transformation unfolds in practice, particularly in medium-sized cities, remains poorly understood. Using Lianyungang City, China, as an illustrative case, this study examines stakeholder perceptions of the socio-technical conditions associated with its digital drainage transformation. Drawing on a structured questionnaire survey of drainage professionals, the analysis assesses stakeholder perceptions of system performance, awareness and expectations of digital technologies, governance readiness, and stage-specific barriers. The results reveal strong support for digitalization but persistent constraints. At the initiation stage, progress is limited by aging infrastructure, shortages of interdisciplinary expertise, and financial constraints. During implementation, socio-technical misalignment, legacy-system incompatibility, fragmented data governance, and weak operation and maintenance capacity dominate. Governance limitations are a perceived limiting factor on scaling digital initiatives, while transparency and public participation remain underprioritized. The study advances a capacity-oriented understanding of digital drainage transformation and offers policy insights for medium-sized cities.
Lei Fan, Bowen Tan· Discover Civil Engineering· 0 citations
Urban shrinkage has emerged as a relevant theme in recent urban scholarship, with growing intellectual interest since the start of the twenty-first century. The process, characterized by concomitant population decline and economic downturn, is driven by global and local forces such as economic globalization, deindustrialization, suburbanization, and political–institutional reform. While extensive research in developed countries has explored its causes and consequences, studies in developing contexts, particularly in small cities, remain limited. This study examines urban shrinkage in the small Iranian town of Harsin (Iran) that experienced a loss of roughly 20% of its population over two decades with the aim of identifying dominant drivers through direct and indirect causal relationships and proposing mitigation strategies. In this study, spatial and descriptive analyses were carried out on 15 social, economic, physical, and infrastructural indicators at the neighborhood scale, using GIS-based overlay techniques. To further examine the mechanisms underlying population decline, path analysis with a backward elimination regression procedure was employed to trace both the direct and indirect determinants of urban shrinkage in Harsin (Iran) during the period 2011–2016. Four direct predictors include (1) homeownership rates, (2) unemployment, (3) rental housing share, and (4) property values, while seven indirect factors, such as aging populations (more than 65 years old), male labor participation, employment status, small-sized housing (less than 75 m
2
), building age, nonreinforced construction materials, and net migration, operate through mediating variables. Unemployment emerged as the strongest direct predictor (coefficient = 4.491), whereas property values showed the weakest association (coefficient = 0.290). The combined-effects model underscores unemployment’s dominant role (total coefficient = −5.87), with high-unemployment neighborhoods experiencing acute population loss. These findings highlight the urgency of targeted policy interventions, particularly in employment and housing, to address urban shrinkage in small cities. Finally, based on these findings, a set of goals, objectives, strategies, and policies is proposed to mitigate urban shrinkage, with implications for urban planning in similar small-scale cities in developing countries.
Mohammadreza Gholami Gowhareh· Journal of urban planning an...· 0 citations
Rapid urbanization represents one of the most profound demographic and structural transformations of the twenty-first century. As populations migrate to urban centers in pursuit of employment and higher living standards, traditional municipal frameworks face unprecedented strain. Unchecked urban growth frequently leads to infrastructural bottlenecks, traffic congestion, environmental degradation, and resource scarcity. In response to these pressures, the paradigm of the Smart City has emerged as an advanced urban development model. By integrating digital technologies, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and data-driven governance, smart cities attempt to align rapid urbanization with sustainable economic growth and enhanced human well-being. This comprehensive paper analyzes the multifaceted relationship between urbanization pressures and smart city technological interventions, mapping out core architectural, systemic, and economic dimensions.
Sanika Ghotankar, Manasi Gore· International Journal For Mu...· 0 citations
Governance has emerged as a central sustainability challenge amid accelerating urbanization, environmental degradation, and climate change, yet research on the urban–environment nexus remains conceptually fragmented. This study maps the field’s high-impact intellectual core through a bibliometric analysis of the 250 most-cited articles selected from a systematically screened Scopus dataset covering 2000–2025. Using performance indicators, author-keyword co-occurrence networks, and Louvain community detection, the analysis identifies eight salient thematic clusters, with governance, climate change, and cities forming the dominant conceptual core. Keyword centrality and link-strength measures show a post-2015 expansion of applied themes such as climate change adaptation, resilience, nature-based solutions, and collaborative governance, alongside a decline in purely normative framing. Building on these results, the study synthesizes the clusters through an Input–Process–Output–Outcome (IPOO) framework and derives six governance pathways: Adaptive Resilience, Polycentric and Multi-Level Governance, Collaborative Adaptation, Participatory Environmental Governance, Techno-Centric Smart Governance, and Sustainability Transitions. The findings further reveal a persistent North–South asymmetry, with over half of highly cited contributions originating from a small group of Northern countries and journals. By focusing on citation-dense foundational literature, the study clarifies the field’s dominant knowledge architecture and provides a governance typology for evaluating trade-offs among efficiency, equity, participation, and resilience in urban sustainability transitions.
Imran Hossain, A. K. M. Mahmudul Haque, Abdullah Al Masud et al.· Discover Environment· 0 citations
Rapid urban expansion has become a global concern that increasingly encroaches on agricultural land and threatens food security, environmental sustainability, and rural livelihoods. This study offers a comprehensive bibliometric review of global research at the crossroads of urbanization, agricultural land degradation, and food security. We analyzed 585 peer‐reviewed documents from the Scopus database, which is based on the R‐based Bibliometrix package. The Results show that scientific interest has grown notably, especially since the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with key themes including land use change, urban sprawl, and agricultural land degradation. Despite substantial global growth in publication output and international collaboration, research remains highly fragmented and geographically biased, with contributions primarily from China and the United States. A few studies directly link urban development with agricultural sustainability or explore how governance frameworks address land‐use trade‐offs. Additionally, emerging thematic clusters highlight new or growing research areas around topics such as food security, urban sprawl, climate smart agriculture, and land fragmentation. This study identifies critical research gaps, particularly the lack of integrated approaches linking urban development with agricultural sustainability and governance frameworks. These findings provide valuable insights for researchers and policymakers to develop strategies to address the challenges of urban expansion.
Shahab E. Saqib, S. Visetnoi, R. Ullah· Land Degradation & Devel...· 0 citations