Washington, D.C.---The
world's urban population is expected to grow by 2.6 billion people
between 2011 and 2050, bringing the total number of urbanites to 6.3
billion, according to new research conducted by the Worldwatch Institute
for its Vital Signs Online service (www.worldwatch.org).
This urban expansion will be especially burdensome for developing
countries, where 82 percent of the world's population currently lives,
writes report author Grant Potter.
Although the
developing world is less urbanized than the industrial world in relative
terms, developing countries are home to an estimated 1.54 billion more
people. In absolute terms, the developing world is projected to add
approximately 2.45 billion people to its cities by 2050, while the
industrial world is due to add just 170 million.
Within the developing
world, the vast majority of this urban growth is projected to occur in
Asia and Africa. Asia far outstrips Africa in total population, with 4.2
billion people in 2011 compared with Africa's 1 billion. But these
regions are also the least urbanized areas on Earth: Asia's population
was 45 percent urban in 2011, and Africa's was only 40 percent urban. In
Latin America and the Caribbean, by contrast, 78 percent of the
regions' 599 million people live in cities.
A characteristic
feature of Asian urbanization is the prevalence of "megacities" that are
home to more than 10 million people. In 2011, there were 23 such cities
worldwide, 13 of which were Asian. By 2025, the total number of
megacities is expected to reach 37----with
21 in Asia alone. Southeast Asia is the most densely settled subregion
in Asia, with approximately 16,500 people per square kilometer (compared
with only 4,345 people per square kilometer in Europe in 2000).
Cities, especially in
the developing world, must find a way to provide essential services to
their ever-increasing populations. When cities fail to meet these
essential needs on a large scale, they create areas known as slums,
where households typically lack safe drinking water, safe sanitation, a
durable living space, or security of a lease. According to UN HABITAT,
828 million people in developing-world cities are considered slum
dwellers----one in every three
residents. Slum populations are expected to grow significantly in the
future, and UN HABITAT projects that 6 million more people live in slums
every year.
The World Health
Organization identifies the rapid increase of urban populations,
especially slum populations, as the most important issue affecting
health in the 21st century. The agency cites overcrowding, lack of safe
water, and improper sanitation systems as the primary factors
contributing to poor health among the urban poor. Slums often become
breeding grounds for diseases like tuberculosis, dengue, pneumonia, and
cholera, and slum dwellers contract water-borne or respiratory illnesses
at much higher rates than people in rural areas do.
Cities and their
slums will continue to grow as long as rural populations continue to
migrate to cities to find economic and other opportunities, such as
access to cultural amenities, education, and health care.
Further highlights from the report:
- Census data in 2010 indicate that cities are home to 3.5 billion people, or 50.5 percent of the global population.
- The UN Population Division projects that between 2011 and
2050, the world's population will increase by 2.3 billion people,
bringing the total population to 9.3 billion.
- The industrialized world has little room to urbanize
further: it was 78 percent urban in 2011, and by 2050 it is expected to
be approximately 86 percent urban. By comparison, the developing world
was only 47 percent urban in 2011, a share that could reach 64 percent
by 2050.
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