Jobs in the City: Explaining Urban Spatial Structure in Kampala

This paper examines the spatial organisation of jobs in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda

From:
Department for International Development
Published
1 April 2016
Country:
Uganda
Document Type:
Working Paper
Theme:
Economic Growth
Authors:
Goswami, Arti Grover, Lall, Somik V

Abstract

This paper examines the spatial organization of jobs in Kampala, , and applies the Lucas and Rossi-Hansberg (2002) model to explain the observed patterns in terms of the agglomeration forces and the commuting costs of workers.

The paper suggests that:

  • Economic activities are concentrated in the downtown - beyond which employment is spatially dispersed.

  • Geographically weighted regressions identify 5 potential subcenters in 2011; however, none of these contribute significantly to employment.

When explaining the variation in employment density across localities in Kampala, the research highlights that:

  1. density falls by 23.5 percent per kilometer increase in distance from the nearest potential subcenter;
  2. an increase in local production externalities of 10 percent increases density by 3.7 percent;
  3. production externalities in Kampala’s potential subcenters are extremely weak to have any significant impact even on nearby tracts

Citation

Goswami, Arti Grover; Lall, Somik V. 2016. Jobs in the City : Explaining Urban Spatial Structure in Kampala. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7655. World Bank, Washington, DC. © World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/24230 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.

Jobs in the City: Explaining Urban Spatial Structure in Kampala

Published 1 April 2016
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