World’s population moves to cities
June 27th, 2007 by ashish
You knew cities were big, but there was always the thought that a major section of people still live in the countryside. No longer so. The United Nations Population Fund publishes a report that states come 2008, a majority of the world’s population will be living in cities. Given current population, that number would be around 3.3 billion, but this trend is likely to accelerate such that within the next 25 years, more than 5 billion of humanity will be living in cities. And a lot of this is going to happen in the newer developing economies and the poorer countries rather than in the developed world.
This phenomenon is occurring particularly in the developing nations in Asia and Africa, and the fund says the decisions taken now will decide the quality of life for the teeming urban dwellers in the years to come. Does that mean that more people will be born into sprawling shack communities on the edges of the cities, putting pressure on infrastructures already tottering toward collapse? It probably does mean that, in addition to the continued growth of middle-class suburbs in so many of the world’s cities.
City administrations must plan for growth, installing basic water supplies, power, street access, waste disposal, and secure land tenure for future poor inhabitants. Good and cheap public transport is another basic essential. Martine believes the poor will be able to provide their own housing; even if at first it’s made from flattened biscuit tins, he says it will gradually improve as wealth increases.
However, this is of a very optimistic nature. As cities, especially in poorer countries stretch to accommodate the influx of these migrants, it is difficult to believe that planners will actually anticipate this growth and plan expansion of facilities and services to cope with the increased need. It is far more likely that there will be further dingy areas of cities developed where these migrants survive on some bad-quality but low-cost housing with poor sanitation and essential services. As these migrants start moving up on the economic ladder, more such services and facilities will start being available to them. But as for better planning to work on coming up with solution to these problems on a proactive basis, forget it. Not expected.
