QOTD Megacities Top Ten Largest Cities PRB 2013

QOTD - Megacities Top Ten Largest Cities (PRB 2013) • • • Tokyo 37. 2 million New Delhi 22. 6 Mexico City 20. 4 New York City 20. 3 Shanghai 20. 2 Sao Paulo 19. 2 Mumbai 19. 7 Beijing 15. 6 Dhaka 15. 4 Kolkata 14. 4 1990 – 10 megacities 2014 – 28 megacities

Megacities • Megacity – any metropolitan area with over 10 million inhabitants • Metropolitan area – large concentration of population, usually an area of 100 K or more, with an important city at its core plus suburban and exurban areas that surround the city and are socially and economically integrated with it. • Most megacities are in South Asia and East Asia • 54% of global population lives in cities, estimates at 66% by 2050

Megacities • Urban Challenges: meeting the needs of housing, infrastructure, transportation, energy, employment, education, health care; preventing slums/squatter settlements • Rural populations expected to decrease as urban populations continue to grow. The global rural population is now close to 3. 4 billion and will decline to 3. 1 billion by 2050. (Remember “rural resentment”)? • Africa and Asia are urbanizing rapidly, but the regions are still home to nearly 90% of the world’s rural population. India has the largest rural population with 857 million, followed by China with 635 million.

Site and Situation Factors • Site – absolute location • Situation – relative location; after European exploration and colonization, many dominant interior cities declined and coastal cities became more prominent. Examples: Samarkand, Uzbekistan located on the Silk Road and Timbuktu, Mali located along a key Trans-Saharan trade route