The 10km gap between Johannesburg and its main dormitory town, the former black township of Soweto, remains desolate and undeveloped.

ECONOMIST: A city��s metamorphosis

Having entered parliament in 1986, he also became mayor of Sarcelles, a poor dormitory town north of Paris, in 1995.

ECONOMIST: Pragmatic charmer with the purse

Mr Hayley said the increased number of houses on the waterfront would inevitably create increased traffic as Barry was largely a dormitory town for Cardiff.

BBC: ?230m Barry waterfront house and shops plan approved

One former fan, a mother of three in the dormitory town of Karaj, west of Tehran, amuses her family by raining new and ever more imaginative curses on the president when he appears on television.

ECONOMIST: Iran

On his return to Hong Kong 10 years later, his father's rice paddy was paved over and his old neighborhood had become a dormitory suburb called Fanling New Town.

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