The developing world has built structures on an unprecedented scale to accommodate population growth and urbanization. The horizontal and vertical structuring of the building stock resulting from this “megatrend construction” strongly influences urban and rural poverty, sustainability, resilience, and quality of life. However, due to data constraints, little is known about how and why 3D building patterns vary globally and in the developing world in particular. This study uncovers novel facts on global 3D building patterns as a result of outward and upward preferences in construction and investigates their relationship to the development process. To this end, new high-resolution data on the area, height, and volume of the global building stock are combined with various analyses undertaken at different spatial domains. The results show that building stock per capita increases convexly with income, but income only explains two-thirds of the differences in international volume. Additionally, while building upward systematically drives international volume differences, low-rise buildings still dominate construction patterns. Urbanization tends to reduce space consumption per capita as urban residents consume less volume than rural residents. Finally, the analyses of construction preferences may help to assess construction needs by forecasting volume requirements in developing Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Authors
Esch, Thomas, Deininger, Klaus, Jedwab, Remi, Palacios-Lopez, Daniela
- Citation
- “ Esch, Thomas ; Deininger, Klaus ; Jedwab, Remi ; Palacios-Lopez, Daniela . 2024 . Outward and Upward Construction: A 3D Analysis of the Global Building Stock . Policy Research Working Paper; 10866 . © Washington, DC: World Bank . http://hdl.handle.net/10986/42054 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO . ”
- Collection(s)
- Policy Research Working Papers
- DOI
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-10866
- Identifier externaldocumentum
- 34376490
- Identifier internaldocumentum
- 34376490
- Pages
- 50
- Published in
- United States of America
- RelationisPartofseries
- Policy Research Working Paper; 10866
- Report
- WPS10866
- Rights
- CC BY 3.0 IGO
- Rights Holder
- World Bank
- Rights URI
- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/
- UNIT
- DEC-Sustainability & Infrastruct (DECSI)
- URI
- https://hdl.handle.net/10986/42054
- Volume
- 1
- date disclosure
- 2024-08-12
- region geographical
- World
Files
Table of Contents
- Thomas Esch 1
- Klaus Deininger 1
- Remi Jedwab 1
- Daniela Palacios-Lopez 1
- Thomas Esch DLR-DFD Klaus Deininger World Bank 3
- Remi Jedwab GWU Daniela Palacios-Lopez DLR-DFD 3
- 1. Introduction 4
- 2. World Settlement Footprint 3D From Version 1 to Version 2 7
- 3. Background 13
- 4. The Role of the Development Process 14
- 4.1. The Relationship between Building Stocks and Economic Development 14
- 4.2. Quantifying Current Global Construction Gaps 16
- 4.3. Quantifying Future Global Construction Needs 18
- 5. Outward versus Upward Construction 22
- 5.1. Decomposition of International Volume Differences 22
- 5.2. Upward versus Outward Specializations 25
- 6. The Influence of Urban and Rural Areas as Countries Develop 28
- 6.1. International Volume Differences across Cities 28
- 6.2. Volumes from Urban Areas versus Rural Areas 29
- 6.3. Decomposition of International Urban and Rural Volume Differences 29
- 6.4. Upward versus Outward Specializations Urban and Rural Areas 31
- 7. Conclusion 34
- REFERENCES 34
- B2. First-step selection of the tall buildings 38
- B3. Height variables used 38
- B4. Second-step selection of the tall buildings based on the completion year 39
- B5. Representativeness of the tall buildings data 41
- C Methods 42
- C1. Classifying countries into 4 groups heights vs. areas high-rises vs. low-rises 42
- C2. Relation between city economic development and city building stocks 42
- C3. City per capita income measure 43
- C4. Relation between city per capita income and city population size 43
- C5. Decomposing built-up volumes at the city level 44
- C6. Classifying regions into 4 groups for primate secondary cities rural areas 44
- REFERENCES 44
- C. Appendix Figures and Appendix Tables NOT FOR PUBLICATION 45
