Publications

16 Sep 2015
Keynote Speech

Revitalizing Inner Cities: The Strategic Agenda (Video)

By: Michael E. Porter

Video of Keynote presentation at the Inner City Economic Summit, Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, Detroit, MI View Details

Keywords: Economic Development; Urban Development; Economics; Industry Clusters; United States

29 Aug 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Entrepreneurship and Urban Growth: An Empirical Assessment with Historical Mines

Keywords: by Edward L. Glaeser, Sari Pekkala Kerr & William R. Kerr; Manufacturing

Article

Entrepreneurship and Urban Growth: An Empirical Assessment with Historical Mines

By: Edward L. Glaeser, Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr

We study entrepreneurship and growth through the lens of U.S. cities. Initial entrepreneurship correlates strongly with urban employment growth, but endogeneity bedevils interpretation. Chinitz (1961) hypothesized that coal mines near cities led to specialization in... View Details

Keywords: Industrial Organization; Chinitz; Agglomeration; Clusters; Cities; Mines; Industry Clusters; Urban Development; Entrepreneurship; City; Mining; Mining Industry; United States

November 2007 (Revised April 2022)
Case

Control Data Corporation and the Urban Crisis

By: Tom Nicholas and Laura Gaie Singleton

Control Data Corporation is considering its response to the assassination of renowned civil rights activist Martin Luther King. Four months prior, William Norris, president of the Minneapolis-based computer firm had already committed to building a plant in a low-income... View Details

Keywords: Urban Development; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Urban Scope; Computer Industry; District of Columbia; Minneapolis

January 2008
Article

Entrepreneurship and Urban Success: Toward a Policy Consensus

By: Zoltan J. Acs, Edward L. Glaeser, Robert E. Litan, Lee Fleming, Stephan J. Goetz, William R. Kerr, Steven Klepper, Stuart S. Rosenthal, Olav Sorenson and William C. Strange

Like all politics, all entrepreneurship is local. Individuals launch firms and, if successful, expand their enterprises to other locations. But new firms must start somewhere, even if their businesses are conducted largely or exclusively on the Internet. Likewise,... View Details

Keywords: Business Headquarters; Business Startups; Development Economics; Economy; Entrepreneurship; Policy; Taxation; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Development; Business Processes; Expansion; Internet

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30 Apr 2024
Blog Post

IFC India: Urban Adaptation in a Changing World

of sustainability efforts, decarbonization, and net zero in the context of a broader development agenda. The class culminated in a series of site visits in January 2024 in Mumbai and Bangalore and this is one of 14 student essays that... View Details

Research Summary

Sustainability, Real Estate and the Built Environment

By: John D. Macomber

Research interests include:

Real estate development, design, and construction, notably how design creates value;
Sustainable cities, in particular entrepreneurship and project finance in light of global trends in urbanization and resource... View Details

Keywords: Infrastructure Finance; Sustainability; Urban Development; City Growth

Article

Happiness on Tap: Piped Water Adoption in Urban Morocco

By: Florencia Devoto, Esther Duflo, Pascaline Dupas, William Pariente and Vincent Pons

Connecting private dwellings to the water main is expensive and typically cannot be publicly financed. We show that households' willingness to pay for a private connection is high when it can be purchased on credit, not because a connection improves health but because... View Details

Keywords: Water Supply; Urban Development; Household; Credit; Well-being; Morocco

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January 2018
Article

Big Data and Big Cities: The Promises and Limitations of Improved Measures of Urban Life

By: Edward L. Glaeser, Scott Duke Kominers, Michael Luca and Nikhil Naik

New, "big" data sources allow measurement of city characteristics and outcome variables at higher frequencies and finer geographic scales than ever before. However, big data will not solve large urban social science questions on its own. Big data has the most value for... View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Urban Scope; City

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09 Dec 2015
Working Paper Summaries

Big Data and Big Cities: The Promises and Limitations of Improved Measures of Urban Life

Keywords: by Edward L. Glaeser, Scott Duke Kominers, Michael Luca & Nikhil Naik

01 Apr 2002
News

Urban Evolution - HBS Research on the Inner City

full glory of their wealthier pasts. The point is that they are becoming places where people want to live, shop, run businesses, and go to school." At HBS, a number of faculty are engaged in research and teaching projects that treat these recent View Details

Keywords: Paul Grogan; Peter Tufano; David Crockett; Diana Barrett; Real Estate

January 2001
Case

World Bank and Knowledge Management, The: The Case of the Urban Services Thematic Group

By: William E. Fulmer and W. Earl Sasser

The World Bank has implemented a knowledge management initiative. One of its communities of practice is to take the lead in a $50 billion commitment to address urban slums. The community of practice is struggling with its mission and how knowledge management can help. View Details

Keywords: Urban Development; Knowledge Management; Problems and Challenges; Financial Services Industry

Find at Harvard

11 Jan 2016
News

The Future of Cities Depends on Innovative Financing

Keywords: social impact bonds; urban development; developing economies; infrastructure; social impact investing

15 Mar 2010
HBS Case

Developing Asia’s Largest Slum

estate values in the world. “Government is not one person, obviously; it's many people with many agendas, particularly in India." —Lakshmi Iyer In "Dharavi: Developing Asia's Largest Slum," HBS assistant professor Lakshmi... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Construction; Real Estate

01 Dec 2020
News

In the Zone

When Kwame Owusu-Kesse (MBA/MPP 2012) was in his last year of graduate school, he got a call from Geoffrey Canada, founder and CEO of Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ), a nonprofit that takes a comprehensive, cradle-to-career approach to meeting the health and education... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; nonprofit management; urban development; leadership; public education; Educational Services

January 2020
Case

Terra Nova: A Social Business Trying to Unlock Land Rights for the Urban Poor in Brazil

By: Julie Battilana, Ruth Costas, Marissa Kimsey and Priscilla Zogbi

Brothers André and Daniel Albuquerque founded the company Terra Nova in 2001 to mediate land disputes between poor families illegally living in urban areas and the official landowners—with the aspiration to improve the lives of the poor. A business-led approach to the... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Social Enterprise; Entrepreneurship; Negotiation; Power and Influence; Social Issues; Conflict and Resolution; Business and Government Relations; Infrastructure; Urban Development; Real Estate Industry; Brazil; Latin America

January 2017 (Revised April 2017)
Supplement

Bridj and the Business of Urban Mobility (B): A New Model in Kansas City

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen

In late 2016, Bridj was expanding its digital platform to help address urban mobility problems faced by cities across the country and the world. Its founder and CEO, Matt George, weighed up several possible strategies for growth as he aimed to responsibly build the... View Details

March 2004 (Revised April 2006)
Case

St. Louis: Inner-City Economic Development

By: Michael E. Porter, Anne S. Habiby and Joanne Lasala

Describes the history and challenges of the economically distressed inner city areas of St. Louis, a major U.S. metropolitan area. Profiles regional and inner city economics and describes a new effort by community leaders to develop and implement a strategy to... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Leading Change; Urban Development; Problems and Challenges; Public Administration Industry; Saint Louis

July 2009 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Dharavi: Developing Asia's Largest Slum (A)

By: Lakshmi Iyer, John D. Macomber and Namrata Arora

Maharashtra state is accepting bids to redevelop Dharavi, the largest slum in Asia. A real estate developer assesses the risks and tenders a bid. The bid conditions include providing new free housing to tens of thousands of slum dwellers, which is anticipated to be... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Development Economics; Housing; Urban Development; Emerging Markets; Social Issues; Business and Government Relations; Real Estate Industry; Mumbai