Turning Sri Lanka’s urban vision into policy and action

Sri Lanka’s Country Vision is to become a global hub between the East and the West and to transition to an upper middle-income country by 2016. Sri Lanka’s Urban Vision is to develop a system of competitive, environmentally sustainable, well-linked cities clustered in five metro regions and to provide every family with affordable and adequate urban shelter by 2020. Achieving this vision entails capitalizing on the high productivity of the Colombo Metropolitan Region – one of Sri Lanka’s most valuable assets for making the transition. Developing Sri Lanka as a system of cities will be helped by its diverse economic assets and resource-based competitive advantages in tourism, agroprocessing, and fisheries and by its small territory. The agglomeration forces that have led to the concentration of economic activity in the Colombo Metropolitan Region will most likely persist in the near future, benefiting the transition.

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