Urban World

New research from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) finds that more than 60 percent of global growth to 2025 is likely to come from just 600 cities. And contrary to conventional wisdom, this is not a story about megacities. In fact, almost 40 percent of global growth is expected to come from just over 400 fast-growing middleweight cities–with populations under 10 million–in emerging market regions. But it would be a mistake to assume that the growth will lie exclusively in emerging markets—98 rapidly growing North American cities will contribute almost 10 percent of global growth in this period. The research draws its insights from forecasts for demographic and economic data for more than 2,000 of the largest metropolitan areas around the world and builds on MGI's research on urbanization in China, India, and Latin America. The resulting MGI Cityscope database offers many different city rankings and groupings by region, variable, and target markets.

Participants

Featured Speakers
Richard Dobbs
Director, McKinsey Global Institute

Jaana Remes
Senior Fellow, McKinsey Global Institute

Moderator
Patrick Doherty
Director, Smart Strategy Initiative
New America Foundation