The world will soon become predominantly urban, according to United Nations predictions. By 2030, 60 percent of the worlds population will live in cities, according to a study of the state of the worlds cities by the UN Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat), based in Nairobi, published Thursday.
This trend is equivalent to the addition of a city of 1 million residents – or a city the size of Hanoi or Pittsburgh – every week, reports the World Bank press review Friday.
Already, parts of Asia-Pacific are experiencing “hyper-urbanization” at an unprecedented speed. It took London 130 years to grow from 1 million to 8 million inhabitants, Bangkok took 45 years, Dhaka 37 years and Seoul only 25 years.
This rapid expansion of cities is destined to lift many of the worlds poorest people out of poverty. However, it is also set to exacerbate a bleak situation in many cities, according to Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general.
– Many cities face pervasive and persistent problems, including growing poverty, deepening inequality and polarization, widespread corruption at the local level, high rates of urban crime and violence, and deteriorating living conditions, he says.
But powerful forces are driving the growth of cities. As the worlds population expands, nearly all of the growth in numbers is expected to be absorbed into the urban areas of the worlds least developed regions.
High-income countries will account for only 28 million of the predicted growth in the worlds urban population from 2,86 billion in 2000 to 4,98 billion by 2030. In some regions, notably Asia-Pacific, economic growth and new transport infrastructure are fuelling “regional urbanization”.
As well as drawing people from the countryside into cities, urban areas are absorbing local populations as they spread far into the rural hinterlands. These vast “mega-urban regions” can extend over thousands of kilometers and even spill over national borders, as with the Singapore triangle, which includes part of Malaysia and Indonesia, or the Bohai rim between China and South Korea.
However, economic dynamism does not explain the growth of south Asian urban agglomerations, such as Delhi, Dhaka, Karachi, Kolkata and Mumbai. Rural poverty and high fertility are more important factors, according to the UN report.
Rural poverty is also driving the expansion of Africas large cities, which the UN says are undergoing a process of “over-urbanization” in which they are unable to support their growing populations. A shortage of jobs and infrastructure investment means that they cannot meet even peoples most minimal needs.
A dire situation is emerging in the fast-growing cities of the Middle East, such as in Saudi Arabia, where cities are doubling or tripling their populations every 10 years. Throughout the region, there are large numbers of young, impoverished people who moved from rural backgrounds to cities in search of economic opportunities that are mostly not there.
Cities are being enlarged by international migrants, who represented about 3 percent of the world population in 2000. Although migration is mostly directed towards developed countries, developing countries are also affected by the growing numbers of people fleeing violence or poverty.
The problems arising from rapid urbanization have called into question some of the advantages of moving to the city. Over the last century, urbanization was closely associated with increasing income, life expectancy, literacy, infant survival and access to infrastructure and social services in all regions of the developing world.
Some of these advantages are being eroded. For example, better health services and higher incomes traditionally benefited the health of city dwellers. However, this is being undermined by increases in urban poverty and disease.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
