Urbanization and Conflict In 1800, London was the world's largest city with 1 million people. Today, 326 metropolitan areas have more than 1 million people and 16 cities have more than 10 million. By 2025, there are expected to be 650 cities with populations of more than 1 million.
......Migration affects Urbanization Patterns
Urban Growth Seen From Outer Space NASA satellite images.
Fast-growing urban areas seldom keep up with the necessary infrastructure: sewers, roads, pollultion controls, jobs, yet cities are growing at a tremendous rate. Urban air pollution is the number one killer of young children.
The world was 45% urban in 1995 and cities are expected to hold most of the projected increase in humanity for the next 25 years. UNFPA, The State of World Population 1998
The number of cities with more than 1 million people rose from 111 in 1960 to 280 in 1995, and two-thirds of those are in developing nations. UNFPA, The State of World Population 1995
Urbanization tends to reduce family size. UNFPA
The urban population is growing at a rate of 2.3% per year. Rural-urban migration accounts for about 40% of urban growth. Commission on Population and Development Concise report on world population monitoring, 19999: population gorwth, structure and distribution
By 2010, the developing-world total will be 368 such cities, up from 173 in 1990. This will further strain those nations' capacity to provide services such as energy, education, health care, transportation, sanitation, and physical security.
What Does the Future hold for Urban-dwellers? It’s Not a Pretty Picture In affluent nations, the percentage of city-dwellers increased by about 37% between 1950 and 1995, but in less-developed nations, the percentage of urban residents more than doubled; in the world’s least-developed nations, it more than tripled, according to U.N. statistics. And in the same period the number of cities went from 34 to 214. By 2050 cities will have to absorb 2 - 4 billion more people. Urban poor have experienced dramatic declines in living standards, worse than that of their counterparts in rural areas. Stresses of urban life weaken, water is often expensive and poor quality, toxic materials and chemicals are all around, diets are unhealthy, high-fat street food, air is polluted, and microbes have become ever more resilient. Unemployment and squalor lead to violence. Foreign investors are fleeing. 300 million people are directly at risk if there is a one-meter rise in the oceans. Cities are hostage to the global economy and when food or water becomes scarce, strife is around the corner. June 1999
Megacities Sweet Dreams or Environmental Nightmares? The number of megacities (10 million or more inhabitants) in the world has climbed from 5 in 1975 to 14 in 1995 and is expected to reach 26 cities by 2015. Transportation and communication systems permit individuals to enjoy the benefits of major metropolitan areas without actually having to live there. Burgeoning population densities rapidly overwhelm whatever facilities exist and place entire city populations in jeopardy. 25-50% of urban inhabitants in developing countries are estimated to live in impoverished slums and squatter settlements.
Overwhelmed by population growth, the developing world's cities have been unable to provide sufficient basic services. 220 million people, or 13% of the world's urban population, have no access to clean drinking water; 26% lack access to even simple latrines. 1/2 of the solid waste goes uncollected, leading to a range of water-borne diseases and diseases such as malaria and dengue fever, from which half the urban population is suffering. Micro-credit schemes continue to get high marks in pulling people out of poverty. In Delhi, 1 in 10 children aged 5 - 16 suffers from bronchial asthma, caused partly by air pollution. China has nine of the 10 cities most affected by total suspended particles (TSPs), with mean annual concentrations exceeding 500 micrograms per cubic meter, 400 above WHO's acceptable levels. In the 1970s, a medium-sized city had a population from 250,000 to 500,000 and there were 163 metropolitan areas worldwide that had over a million citizens, and less than 40% of the world's population lived in urban areas. Today, a medium-sized city is has one million citizens and there are 350 such areas around the world. September 16, 1999 World Bank
June 19 1999 Worldwatch Cities Hold the Key to Planetary Health. Worldwatch Institute has released a paper, Reinventing Cities for People and the Planet, in which cities occupy 2% of the Earth's surface, yet emit 78% of the carbon from human activities, 76% of industrial wood use, and 60% of the water tapped for use by people. "Urban systems are undermining the planet's health and failing to provide decent living conditions for millions of people." London requires 58 times its land area for food and timber for its residents, which would require three more Earths if everyone lived that way. 600 million city dwellers in the developing world do not have adequate shelter and 1.1 billion choke on unhealthy air, including 3 million deaths in China from toxic urban air in 1994-1996. One-tenth of the population, 160 million people, lived in cities in 1900. Half the world (3.2 billion people) will be urbanites by 2006. Copenhagen, Denmark, Chattanooga, Tennessee offer unique solutions.
Conflict
If one looks at countries that have experienced war, famine and revolutionary upheaval in recent decades -- Iran, Indonesia, Rwanda, Haiti, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Algeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Yemen are all examples -- a common element is population growth that led to urban overcrowding or severe strain on resources. That is Pakistan's situation in a nutshell. Pakistan is just one of many countries in which high population growth has fueled urbanization, unemployment and depletion of resources, which have made the state increasingly hard to govern except through tyrannical means. Annual growth rate is 3%.
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