TALLER BUILDINGS are key to enhancing quality of life as the world’s urban population grows, but cities should not become obsessed with skyscrapers and must prepare for horizontal expansion as newcomers arrive, the World Bank said on Wednesday.

Urban build-up worldwide grew by 30% between 1990 and 2015, with new buildings covering an area roughly the size of Sri Lanka, the bank said in a report that was based on satellite data analysis for almost 10,000 cities.

In poor countries about 90% of new buildings sprung up at the edges of cities, extending their boundaries horizontally, while in rich nations about 35% were built on empty sites within urban centers, the study found.

Such findings appear at odds with the main focus of urban planning in recent years, which has been to create compact cities by building upwards.

But the report’s co-author, Somik Lall, said that while taller buildings and high-density cities do bring benefits, such a model should be adapted to local conditions. “The obsession should not be about building skyscrapers but the passion should be about building liveable cities,” Mr. Lall, the World Bank’s lead urban economist, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

Whether urban hubs grow vertically, horizontally or within existing spaces is tied to economic demand, the report said.

With about 70% of the world’s population expected to live in urban areas by 2050, up from 55% at present, cities should plan to accommodate all three types of development or risk facing uncontrolled sprawl, overcrowding and congestion, Mr. Lall said.

Low-income cities tend to look like “pancakes,” growing wide and flat, as newcomers crowd into low-built quarters or settle on the outskirts where land is cheaper, according to the report.

As incomes grow, so do buildings, with richer cities taking the shape of “pyramids,” the research found.

Pyramid-shaped cities are generally more liveable — allowing inhabitants to enjoy more floor space in a dense environment — and more productive, as the reduced distance between workplaces and employees boosts productivity, the report said.

They are also better for the environment as sprawling peripheries encroach on surrounding natural areas and often lack adequate transport links, fueling traffic and pollution.

“If managed well, cities that take a more pyramid-like shape can provide an impetus to accelerate sustainable development by getting people out of cars, cutting commute times and limiting greenhouse gas emissions,” Mr. Lall said.

Yet, cities cannot leapfrog from “pancake” to “pyramid” with planning regulations alone, as new built central high-rises risk remaining vacant if people cannot afford to live in them, the World Bank researchers said.

For developing cities in particular, it is vital to prepare for horizontal expansion, building transport links and basic infrastructures to ensure liveable conditions on the outskirts and lay the groundwork for future development, the report said. —

“The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the life-and-death implications of crowded neighborhoods that are ill-equipped to curb the spread of disease,” Juergen Voegele, the bank’s vice president for sustainable development, said in a foreword. 

“As countries slowly extricate themselves from the pandemic, planning for a better urban future requires understanding the forces that have shaped the cities we inhabit today.” — Thomson Reuters Foundation

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — The United States will announce in the next two weeks how it plans to distribute 80 million coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine doses it has pledged globally, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a joint news conference with Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado, Mr. Blinken said the administration of US President Joseph R. Biden would focus on equitable distribution of the vaccines and not tie political strings to the process, a criticism at times directed at China.

“Sometime in the next week to two weeks — we will be announcing the process by which we will distribute those vaccines, what the criteria are, how we will do it,” Mr. Blinken said during his first trip as secretary of state to Latin America, which is fighting to contain COVID-19.

“We will distribute vaccines without political requirements of those receiving them.”

On Monday, Biden said his administration would send at least 20 million doses of the Pfizer, Inc./BioNTech SE , Moderna, Inc. and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, on top of 60 million AstraZeneca Plc doses he had already planned to give to other countries.

The Biden administration has been under pressure to share vaccines to help curb worsening outbreaks from India to Brazil, where health experts fear new, more contagious coronavirus variants could undermine the effectiveness of available shots.

Mr. Blinken said the announcement would reveal the criteria and details of the process but that the United States would focus on the equitable distribution and work in coordination of the COVAX vaccine sharing facility.

As the pandemic outlook within the United States brightens with advancing vaccinations, the aid pledge is central to the administration’s drive to use US vaccine supply as a tool to counter Chinese and Russian vaccine diplomacy.

A senior State Department official, when asked if the United States during this trip made vaccine commitments, to Central America or Costa Rica specifically, said no region or country specific pledges had been made.

“We don’t know what the final distribution is going to be. A lot of it has to do with essentially epidemiology and where the science says that we should be dedicating those vaccines to prevent further spread,” the official told reporters in a briefing. 

Mr. Biden, who has loaned some unused vaccines to Canada and Mexico and donated funds to a multilateral vaccination effort for poor countries, in April said the White House was still looking at its options for eventually sending vaccines to Canada, Central America and elsewhere.

Costa Rica’s President Alvarado stressed that his country was hoping for prompt news on vaccine distribution. — Reuters