Global Urban Boundaries 2026: defining where a city ends by economic agglomeration
paulnovosad · x · 2026-09-18
Development Data Lab released DDL Global Urban Boundaries 2026 (v0.1.0), explaining the methodology:
- Problem: cities generate 80%+ of global GDP and hold over half the population, but Global South cities are badly under-studied; official administrative boundaries are outdated and detached from economic reality — Dhaka's official boundary includes farmland while missing de facto urban land, and Noida residents aren't officially in Delhi yet directly suffer its policies.
- Method: an economic definition based on agglomeration economies — the contiguous built-up area where people are more productive together; admin boundaries mean different things in every country, and no off-the-shelf open dataset reflected economic reality.
- It's the first step toward a comparable global standard for city economic data (Urban Data Commons).
Related event: Scholars Flag GHSL Urban Data Errors, Release Better South Asia Boundaries(3 posts)→
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