This book brings together a collection of 15 papers presented during the World Bank 4th Urban Research Symposium held in Washington, DC, May 2007. The 15 papers include a selection of the open
call papers, commissioned papers and inaugural best paper award. Urban growth and development is a key challenge of the present century as more and more of the global population lives in
cities.The 4th Urban Research Symposium is focused on the theme of urban land use and land markets including implications for city spatial growth, efficiency and equity. The papers have the
specific objectives of: (1) clarifying ongoing debates on the links between various aspects of urban land management and welfare by providing a robust analytic foundation to existing findings
or supporting/questioning existing analytic work with empirical applications/case studies; (2) examining the implications of commonly used urban land and related policies when conventional
wisdom is scrutinized using a common methodological framework; (3) highlighting priority policy and program design/implementation questions which cannot be answered due to limited research and
data, and propose a research agenda that sets out to address these questions.The 15 selected papers reflect the above objectives and make the proposed book a must-read for all who are concerned
with the future of cities and the issue that is critical for urban poverty reduction--urban land use and land markets, which will become even more urgent as the world's urban population grows.
