The Guardian is running a series right now called: The next 15 megacities. A megacity is typically (but loosely) defined as a city (or metropolitan area) with a population of at least 10 million people.
By 2035, another 15 cities are expected to become megacities according to the United Nations. Hence the above series. None of these new entrants will be in the Americas. And only one – London – is anticipated to be in the West.
The first city in their series is Baghdad. The second is Dar es Salaam. And the third, and latest, is Tehran. They are such interesting reads.
I have said this before on the blog, but the pace of growth in many of these cities is astounding. Dar es Salaam – one of the fastest growing cities in the world – is adding about half a million people ever year.
For the full megacities series, click here.
I love the work that LSE Cities (London School of Economics) is doing with Urban Age. If you haven’t yet checked out their site, you should do that now. If you’re a city geek, it’s the kind of site you can get lost in for hours. Especially if you’re a sucker for great diagrams like I am.
Here’s one I found today that shows where cities are growing in the world:
Each circle represents a city (well, metropolitan area). The dark green dot is the city’s population in 1950. The lighter green dot is the city’s population in 1990. And the yellow dot is the city’s projected population by 2025. Click here for a larger version of the map.
What’s fascinating about this diagram is that you can so clearly see how the most significant population growth has shifted away from the West to the rest of the world and in particular Asia. That is, those dots have more yellow than green.
We, of course, already knew this was happening. And population is just one dimension. But it’s still interesting to see this in diagram form. We are living through the rise of the East. And this diagram is a reminder of that.
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