Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
total population. The absolute numbers of urban residents in these developing areas
will almost double from its current levels to 5.1 billion in 2050. So the urban areas
will absorb practically all of the world's population growth by mid-century.
This spatial concentration of the world population in urban places is not the only
characteristic of current urbanization trends. It is being intensified by the increasing
numbers of people in the bigger places. Places with over a million people used to be
rare; there were only 83 in 1950. But by 2015 there will probably be almost 500 cen-
tres with more than a million inhabitants accounting for over 2/5ths of the total urban
population and another 730 places with between a half a million and one million resi-
dents. The continued growth of this large city population will mean that in just over
a decade the majority of the world's population may be living in places with over
a million inhabitants. This large city concentration is further intensified by the fact
that in 1951 there were only two places in the megacity category—areas greater than
10 million people. There were 28 such regions in 2014, a number that will increase
to 41 by 2030, the majority in the less developed areas of the world, accounting for
some 14 % of the world population (United Nations 2014). Perhaps the most dramatic
changes are taking place in China where a deliberate state policy of urbanization is
taking place at an unprecedented rate. It has taken only just thirty years for China to
move from 20 % urban in 1980 to 54 % today. By adding 13 million new urban dwell-
ers per year, the country will probably be 70 % urban by 2030 when China's cities
will account for a billion people (TE
2014c
: United Nations 2014).
These urbanization trends are unprecedented in history but are not simply mat-
ters of size, proportion and changing location. They are associated with fundamen-
tal changes in the patterns, economies and social structures of urban places, with
greater interactions between them, as well as problematic relationships with their
environments. The change to an urban habitat makes it even more of a necessity to
find and implement effective policies to create better urban settlements. Yet despite
a century or more of planning in many countries, as well as the increasing involve-
ment of governments in so many activities that affect urban places, there is increas-
ing dissatisfaction with the results of these changes, as well as with the processes by
which urban development occur.
An important basic concern about the current urban condition comes from the
relationships of towns and cities with their environments. Despite our increasing
technological prowess and knowledge we have only just begun to seriously con-
sider the extent to which the power of nature, through storms, floods, earthquakes
and other natural hazards, are negatively affecting, and in some cases even destroy-
ing, many of our settlements and the life of people within them. Several reasons
account for our penchant to underestimate the effects of natural hazards on urban
places. Our former hubris about our apparent ability to conquer nature through tech-
nical progress is fading. Our myopia about the devastating effects of natural hazards
has helped blind our views and limited our policies. Short-term perspectives, often
based on single generational views because of the rapid recent growth of cities, and
the increasing mobility patterns of urban residents, have led us to forget the way in
which such extreme natural events have often drastically affected our settlements,
especially in those parts of the world that are especially prone to major physical
