

Latin American megacities risk becoming a drag on growth - _delirium
http://www.economist.com/node/21525915

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tuukkah
Comparing apples to snowballs, are we? " _For example, every dollar of GDP
generated in Chile’s capital, Santiago, requires 60% more energy than a dollar
of GDP generated in (much colder) Helsinki in Finland._ "

Maybe Helsinki requires less energy simply because the economy is more about
immaterial work, e.g. GDP is generated by branding products actually
manufactured in China?

Or maybe the well-insulated houses in Helsinki require less heating during the
winter than the houses in Santiago require cooling during the summer?

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aaronblohowiak
Weak analysis -- you can't talk about the cities pace of growth vs GDP output
without talking about the sectors responsible for growth in GDP. For instance,
if manufacturing or agriculture were big drivers in GDP growth but the cities
had no available/affordable land do develop for these purposes, then it would
be expected that they would not keep pace.

Either way, the "drag" in this article is just on the average growth %, not an
actual _cost_ per-se.

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iwwr
It probably has more to do with bad governance than inherent strategical
shortfalls of cities.

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scotty79
This guy seems to claim that cities can grow without end and that's a good
thing:

[http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/geoffrey_west_the_surprisi...](http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/geoffrey_west_the_surprising_math_of_cities_and_corporations.html)

