A small selection of big cities has been the driving force behind more than half of the global economic growth this century, new data show.
A McKinsey Global Institute analysis of more than 178 countries showed that half of the increase in global output over the first two decades of the millennium was generated by regions making up less than 1 per cent of the world’s landmass.
While cities have always played an outsized role in driving economic development, the data highlight the degree to which growth was concentrated in places such as Shenzhen and Guangzhou in China, Delhi and Bangalore in India, and Los Angeles and Dallas in the US.