By 2050 some 6 billion people (two-thirds of the world population) will live in cities. Most of the growth will take place in developing countries where the urban population will double in 30 years from two billion in 2000 to four billion in 2030. In less than 10 years from now, most of the "mega-cities" emerging from that process will be located in developing countries.In their paper "The Next Frontier of E-Government: Local Governments May Hold the Keys to Global Competition," Bruno Lanvin and Anat Lewin (both at the World Bank) illustrate some of the main challenges brought about by the increasingly important role of cities, as opposed to central governments, all over the world.Indeed, the above projections raise questions regarding the ability of the cities of the future to sustain extremely high growth rates while maintaining adequate levels of production and delivery of key public services such as water, transport, electricity, sanitation, education, and containment of crime and pollution.There is, however, another side to this equation, often overlooked. It relates to the emerging role of cities (and subnational entities generally) that are becoming global players-as attractors of foreign investment, as competitiveness hubs, and as platforms for the combination of local and international components of global production and supply chains.The next few years will see the convergence of three major trends: the continuing delegation of functions and responsibilities from central to local governments; the maturation of outsourcing strategies, both domestically (from the public to the private sector, including through PPPs) and internationally (through off-shoring and nearshoring); and the emergence of local global players (LGPs), such as major cities and economic centers, as global competitors and magnets for talents and investments.The authors have given a strong call to build internationally-comparable indicators of networked readiness and e-readiness at the local level, in particular for cities.
