IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v44y2007i5-6p915-937.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Urban Growth in Nepal: Does Location Matter?

Author

Listed:
  • Boris A. Portnov

    (Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel 31905, portnov@nrem.haifa.ac.il)

  • Madhav Adhikari

    (Geomatics Nepal, PO Box 3873, Kathmandu, Nepal, geomatics@enet.com.np)

  • Moshe Schwartz

    (Social Studies Unit, Department of Man in the Desert, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 84990, Israel, moshesc@bgu.ac.il)

Abstract

Between 1952 and 2001, the number of urban settlements in Nepal grew from 10 to 58, while their share in the country's population increased from 2.6 to 14.4 per cent. However, the spatial distribution of urban growth was uneven. To find out how this unevenness was structured, a GIS-assisted analysis matched spatial reference data (such as distances between individual municipalities and major rivers, roads, international borders and major population centres) against several socioeconomic performance indexes, such as annual population growth, per capita income and expenditures of local municipalities, telephone ownership, number of primary schools and number of industrial plants. The fastest-growing urban localities were found to be close to major population centres, to highways and to the Indian border. The rest exhibited poor socioeconomic performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Boris A. Portnov & Madhav Adhikari & Moshe Schwartz, 2007. "Urban Growth in Nepal: Does Location Matter?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 44(5-6), pages 915-937, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:44:y:2007:i:5-6:p:915-937
    DOI: 10.1080/00420980701258118
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/00420980701258118
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00420980701258118?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Henderson, J V, 1974. "The Sizes and Types of Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(4), pages 640-656, September.
    2. Shrestha, Nanda R & Velu, Raja P & Conway, Dennis, 1993. "Frontier Migration and Upward Mobility: The Case of Nepal," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(4), pages 787-816, July.
    3. Boris A. Portnov, 2004. "Long-term growth of small towns in Israel: Does location matter?," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 38(4), pages 627-653, December.
    4. Glaeser, Edward L & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(6), pages 1126-1152, December.
      • Edward L. Glaeser & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1991. "Growth in Cities," NBER Working Papers 3787, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
      • Glaeser, Edward Ludwig & Kallal, Hedi D. & Scheinkman, Jose A. & Shleifer, Andrei, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Scholarly Articles 3451309, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    5. Thapa, Narbada & Chongsuvivatwong, Virasakdi & Geater, Alan F. & Ulstein, Magnar & Bechtel, Gregory A., 2000. "Infant death rates and animal-shed delivery in remote rural areas of Nepal," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 51(10), pages 1447-1456, November.
    6. Fujita, Masahisa & Mori, Tomoya, 1996. "The role of ports in the making of major cities: Self-agglomeration and hub-effect," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 93-120, April.
    7. Fujita,Masahisa & Thisse,Jacques-François, 2013. "Economics of Agglomeration," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107001411.
    8. Resmini, Laura, 2003. "Economic integration, industry location and frontier economies in transition countries," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 205-221, June.
    9. Cohen, Jeffrey P. & Paul, Catherine J. Morrison, 2005. "Agglomeration economies and industry location decisions: the impacts of spatial and industrial spillovers," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 215-237, May.
    10. Bivand, Roger & Szymanski, Stefan, 2000. "Modelling the spatial impact of the introduction of Compulsory Competitive Tendering," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 203-219, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Devkota, Bhuwan & Dudycha, Douglas & Andrey, Jean, 2012. "Planning for non-motorized travel in rural Nepal: a role for geographic information systems," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 282-291.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Theodore Tsekeris & Klimis Vogiatzoglou, 2014. "Public infrastructure investments and regional specialization: empirical evidence from Greece," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(3), pages 265-289, August.
    2. Konishi, Hideo, 2000. "Formation of Hub Cities: Transportation Cost Advantage and Population Agglomeration," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 1-28, July.
    3. Gordon H. Hanson, 2000. "Scale Economies and the Geographic Concentration of Industry," NBER Working Papers 8013, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Mansury, Yuri & Gulyas, Laszlo, 2007. "The emergence of Zipf's Law in a system of cities: An agent-based simulation approach," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(7), pages 2438-2460, July.
    5. Rui Baptista & Joana Mendonça, 2010. "Proximity to knowledge sources and the location of knowledge-based start-ups," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 45(1), pages 5-29, August.
    6. Edward L. Glaeser, 1998. "Are Cities Dying?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 139-160, Spring.
    7. Jordan Rappaport & Jeffrey D. Sachs, 2001. "The U.S. as a coastal nation," Research Working Paper RWP 01-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    8. Alberto Franco Pozzolo, 2004. "Research and Development, Regional Spillovers and the Location of Economic Activities," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 72(4), pages 463-482, July.
    9. Behrens, Kristian, 2007. "On the location and lock-in of cities: Geography vs transportation technology," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 22-45, January.
    10. Kim, Ho Yeon, 2012. "Shrinking population and the urban hierarchy," IDE Discussion Papers 360, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    11. Lall, Somik V. & Shalizi, Zmarak & Deichmann, Uwe, 2004. "Agglomeration economies and productivity in Indian industry," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 643-673, April.
    12. Gilles Duranton & Diego Puga, 2001. "Nursery Cities: Urban Diversity, Process Innovation, and the Life Cycle of Products," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1454-1477, December.
    13. Mauricio Ramírez Grajeda & Ian M. Sheldon, 2015. "Trade Openness and City Interaction," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Amitrajeet A Batabyal & Peter Nijkamp (ed.), THE REGION AND TRADE New Analytical Directions, chapter 10, pages 267-318, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    14. Cazzuffi, Chiara & Pereira-López, Mariana & Soloaga, Isidro, 2017. "Local poverty reduction in Chile and Mexico: The role of food manufacturing growth," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 160-185.
    15. Van Long, N. & Soubeyran, A., 1996. "R&D Spillovers and Location Choice Under Cournot Rivalry," G.R.E.Q.A.M. 96a35, Universite Aix-Marseille III.
    16. Bosker, Maarten & Buringh, Eltjo, 2017. "City seeds: Geography and the origins of the European city system," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 139-157.
    17. James R. Fain, 2017. "City formation with complex landscapes," Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(4), pages 125-137, October.
    18. Diego Puga, 1996. "Urbanisation Patterns: European vs Less Developed Countries," CEP Discussion Papers dp0305, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    19. Roberto Camagni & Roberta Capello & Andrea Caragliu, 2013. "Una o infinite dimensioni urbane ottime? Alla ricerca di una dimensione di equilibrio," SCIENZE REGIONALI, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2013(3), pages 53-88.
    20. Marcus Berliant & Tomoya Mori, 2017. "Beyond urban form: How Masahisa Fujita shapes us," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 13(1), pages 5-28, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:44:y:2007:i:5-6:p:915-937. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.