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11 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 15 FEBRUARY 2026 OPINION Economist Density as destiny. Population, growth & urbanism ONE chart should fundamental- ly change how we argue about Malta and this was clear during a discussion I had with Kurt San- sone after the publication of the IMF Article IV Report on Malta. IMF staff calculations place Malta's population density at close to 1,800 people per square kilometre, with the note that the latest Malta data corresponds to 2024. In the same comparison, the Netherlands sits at a fraction of that level, while most Europe- an countries are not even in the same conversation. Malta is not marginally denser than its peers. It is an outlier. That is not a demographic curi- osity. It is an economic diagnosis. If Malta is this dense, then our reference points should not be other countries. They should be cities. Dense, interconnected systems where infrastructure, governance, skills and institu- tional design determine whether proximity becomes a source of productivity and innovation or a source of congestion, stress and decline. The IMF report, even in its measured language, essentially describes a city economy. Mal- ta's growth has been driven by services exports such as tourism, gaming and business services, supported by a large inflow of foreign workers and visitors. This has increased population density and placed pressure on infrastructure, housing, public services and the environment. Labour shortages coexist with skills mismatches. Capacity con- straints are becoming binding. These are not the problems of rural economies or dispersed na- tions. These are urban problems. Urban economics has studied this dynamic for decades. One of its most influential contem- porary voices is Edward Glaes- er, a Harvard professor often described as the world's leading economist of cities. His work is not ideological. It is empirical. He studies why cities grow and decline, why some become en- gines of innovation while others become trapped in stagnation. His central argument is de- ceptively simple—cities thrive because proximity accelerates the exchange of ideas. When talented people are physically close to one another, they learn faster, collaborate more easily, form new ventures more readily, and create knowledge spill overs that lift productivity across the system. Density, when managed well, is an asset. It is the reason cities like London, New York, Singapore and Amsterdam gen- erate disproportionate economic value relative to their size. But Glaeser's work is equally clear about the other side of the coin. Density is not automatical- ly beneficial. It only becomes an advantage when supported by the right foundations. Without good governance, effective trans- port, functional housing mar- kets, strong education systems and coherent institutions, den- sity becomes a tax rather than a dividend. This is where Malta's challenge lies. Movement is the first system that defines whether density works. In cities, time is currency. Every minute lost in congestion is lost productivity, lost wellbe- ing and lost economic potential. Malta remains overwhelmingly car dependent, despite its ex- treme density. That is not simply an environmental issue. It is an economic one. In dense urban systems, mass transit, walkabil- ity, proximity and connectivity are not luxuries. They are the infrastructure of productivity. When movement fails, labour markets become less efficient, firms struggle to match with tal- ent, and the entire urban ecosys- tem underperforms. Housing is the second pressure point. In dense systems, land is the most constrained resource. Prices become signals of value, but they also shape who can live where and who can access op- portunity. When housing costs rise faster than wages and pro- ductivity, the city either becomes exclusionary or it compensates by importing labour at scale while compressing living con- ditions. Malta's labour market now relies on foreign workers for over a third of total employment. That is not inherently negative, but it is structurally revealing. It signals that growth has been achieved by expanding head- count in a system where physical space, infrastructure and servic- es are already under strain. Skills and matching are the third pillar. Cities are dense with human capital. The strongest predictor of a city's long-term prosperity is not population size, but the educational and skill composition of its workforce. Urban economists have shown repeatedly that places with higher concentrations of skilled workers experience faster inno- vation, higher wages, stronger firm formation and more resil- ient growth. Density amplifies talent. But density without talent amplifies pressure. This is where the IMF's em- phasis on productivity, skills and structural reform intersects perfectly with the city lens. The fund is effectively saying that Malta has reached the limits of labour-driven growth. The next phase must be productivity-driv- en. That means fewer gains from adding people, and greater gains from increasing value per person. In a city economy, this transition is not optional. It is survival. Treating Malta as a city rath- er than as a conventional na- tion-state means reframing economic policy around place and systems rather than sectors and silos. Cities succeed because their transport, housing, plan- ning, skills, innovation and gov- ernance systems are aligned to- ward a coherent direction. It means asking different ques- tions. Not "How fast is GDP growing?" but "How much val- ue is generated per square kilo- metre?" Not "How many jobs were created?" but "How effi- ciently can people access oppor- tunity?" Not "How many build- ings were approved?" but "How liveable and productive is the urban environment?" It also forces a different ap- proach to governance. Dense systems require coordination. Fragmented decision-making becomes costly. Malta's current governance ar- chitecture does not reflect its ur- ban reality. Planning, transport, education, infrastructure, hous- ing and economic development remain too fragmented, too po- liticised and too reactive. That fragmentation is corrosive in a hyper-dense environment. The provocation is this: Malta has been speaking and govern- ing as if it were a small country, while living the reality of a meg- acity. The frustration many people feel about congestion, overdevel- opment, overstretched services and declining quality of life is often channelled toward popu- lation growth or migration. But that misses the deeper structural issue. Density itself is not the en- emy. Poorly managed density is. Malta already possesses many advantages that successful cities strive for. It is safe. It is connect- ed. It has strong service sectors. It attracts international talent. It has entrepreneurial depth. But it is not yet operating as a high-per- formance city. Its systems have not caught up with its density. Vision 2050, if it is to be mean- ingful, should be treated as a city blueprint rather than a na- tional brochure. Infrastructure investment should be assessed in terms of urban productivi- ty. Education reform should be framed around building the skills density that successful cities re- quire. Transport reform should be understood as economic re- form. Planning should be seen as a productivity tool, not merely a regulatory hurdle. The choice Malta faces is not whether to become a city. It already is one. The choice is whether it becomes a well-run city or a congested one. A learn- ing city or a transactional one. A city that converts proximity into opportunity or one that allows proximity to degrade into pres- sure. The chart does not just show density. It shows urgency. JP Fabri The choice Malta faces is not whether to become a city. It already is one. The choice is whether it becomes a well-run city or a congested one. A learning city or a transactional one