Fast-growing urban centres are collapsing under their own weight.
Migration from the countryside to the cities, especially coastal cities, is a world changer. According to the United Nations, 44% of the world’s population live within 150 kilometres (or 93 miles) of the coast. Each year around 15 million people choose to leave rural areas to settle in the city. With many migrating towards the sea, the future is daunting.
Since 2007, when the world population living in cities finally topped those living in rural areas, the figures have gone through the roof. Urban areas cover just four percent of the Earth’s surface but “are home to more than 50% of the human population, they use three quarters of the Earth’s natural resources and produce just as much waste and pollution,” writes Mobarak Khan of Bielefeld University in Germany. Khan has published research in the Public Health journal about the alarming state of migrants’ health in Dhaka, Bangladesh: the situation is particularly critical in Asia, where more than half of the population now live in cities.
Cities grow, in height and in breadth. Nowadays we have megacities: single metropolitan areas with populations in excess of 10 million. According to the UN, only three such cities existed in 1975. Today there are 28 but, in the absence of clear data for Lahore and Kinshasa, the number could well be 30. Giants Tokyo-Yokohama and Jakarta top the list.
If you want to read it all, purchase the entire issue in pdf for just three euro
Migration from the countryside to the cities, especially coastal cities, is a world changer. According to the United Nations, 44% of the world’s population live within 150 kilometres (or 93 miles) of the coast. Each year around 15 million people choose to leave rural areas to settle in the city. With many migrating towards the sea, the future is daunting.
Since 2007, when the world population living in cities finally topped those living in rural areas, the figures have gone through the roof. Urban areas cover just four percent of the Earth’s surface but “are home to more than 50% of the human population, they use three quarters of the Earth’s natural resources and produce just as much waste and pollution,” writes Mobarak Khan of Bielefeld University in Germany. Khan has published research in the Public Health journal about the alarming state of migrants’ health in Dhaka, Bangladesh: the situation is particularly critical in Asia, where more than half of the population now live in cities.
This content if for our subscribers
Subscribe for 1 year and gain unlimited access to all content on
eastwest.eu plus both the digital and the hard copy of the geopolitical magazine
Subscribe now €45
Gain 1 year of unlimited access to only the website and digital magazine
Subscribe now €20
