Smart Cities—A Vision of the Future or the Present? - Technology Management for Sustainable Production and Logistics - page 121

problems such as social inequality, social exclusion of some groups, the lack of
cheap and appropriate flats and ecological problems (Leipzig Charter 2007 ).
Increasing income discrepancies, a deepening gap between the poor and the
rich lead in some communities to concentration of inequality with regard to a poor
level of education, a high unemployment rate, bad housing conditions and limited
access or no access to some services such as information technologies, telecom-
munication, health care or communication. The problem also concerns the richest
cities where social and spatial segregation take place. Due to low income or the
marginality nature (the elderly, the disabled) some people find it difficult to buy
a flat they can afford. A growing number of “society outcasts” in many cities and
their suburbs may result in arising sub-cultures with hostile attitude to the rest of
the society (EU 2011 ). A particular attention must be drawn to actions preventing
those growing gaps.
Various reports inform about a growing role of cities and development of urban
logistics that follows it. According to 2013 report findings of Frost & Sullivan
within next 10 year expenses for urban logistics will increase twofold reaching a
global level of USD 5,980 billion (Frost & Sullivan 2013 ). Four trends have the
strongest impact on these forecasts:
• urbanization,
• contact and convergence,
• model bricks and clicks (traditional and internet commerce),
• multimodal transport (high speed railway).
Transport and distribution will probably be the most cost consuming.
It is estimated that by 2025 the world will have about 25 megacities with the
minimum number of population of 8 million and the GDP at the level of USD
250 million. Migrations are stronger and stronger and according to forecasts in
10 years three out of four people will live in an urban area (value estimated for
2025). Twenty biggest megacities are presented in Fig. 2 .
Fig. 2 Top 20 megacities in 2025 ( 2013 )