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Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Metropolitan Megacities and Megalopolis


Out of the top 10 largest cities in the world Asia is home to 7 of them, with the top 7 metropolitan cities in the world being in Asia. [5] In 2005, Time Magazine proclaimed: “Virtually overnight, Chongqing has become the largest city not only in China, but in the world.” Chongqing, the economic center of the upstream Yangtze Basin, located on the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers, is not the largest city in the world, or even in China. [2] The largest city in China is Shanghai, the world’s busiest container port, originally established in the year 960 CE, commonly thought to have a population of 20.8 million. [5] University of Washington Professor Kam Wing Chan thinks a population of almost 14 million in Shanghai’s established city border is a better estimate: “Counting only the population of the urban locality without its suburbs is pretty ignorant of Shanghai’s true population.” [6] In fact, explains Chan, what China calls a city is better understood as a province, so huge it’s about the size of Austria. “Many of the 30 million people who are said to live in the city of Chongqing are actually agricultural workers lining in a rural setting. And if you were to travel from the downtown area to some of those 30 million live, it might take a day or two because the road conditions are not that good.” He says. “So this cannot possibly be called a city. Because when we call a place a city the general understanding is that we’re talking about a commuting zone.” [2] City planners in Southern China have laid blueprints to meld together the transport, energy, and telecommunications networks of the nine existing cities that lie around the Pearl River Dealta in the country’s manufacturing heartland: Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Jiangmen, Huizhou and Zhaoqing, together nearly a tenth of the Chinese economy. At a cost of some 2 trillion yuan, the project dubbed “Turn the Pearl River Delta into One”, scheduled to be completed within the next six years, will turn the Pearl River Delta into a single 16,000 square mile sprawling urban area 26 times larger geographically than Greater London and twice the size of Wales, with a population of 42 million people. [1] [3] Twenty-nine rail lines, totaling some 3,100 miles of railway, will be laid. Ma Xiangming, the chief planner at the Guangdong Rural and Urban Planning Institute, told the Daily Telegraph no name had been chosen for the area: “It will not be like Greater London or Greater Tokyo because there is no one city at the heart of this megalopolis.” He said the main problem now is naming the area, adding: “We cannot just name it after one of the existing cities.” [3] The southern conglomeration is designed to rival the competitive productive firepower of growing urban areas around Bejing and Shanghai. Beihai, with its increasing importance as a gateway to China, is forecast to be the world’s fastest growing urban area between now and 2020. In the North, the process of merging the Bohai region, the area around Bejing and Tiajing, that will create super-urban area known as the Bohai Economic Rim has already begun with the connection of Bejing to Tianjing, two of China’s most important cities. Over the next five years, China’s total investment in urban infrastructure is expected to equal around 685 billion according to an estimate by the British Chamber of Commerce. By 2025, China will pave 5 billion square meters of road, add up to 170 mass transit systems, and spend 70 billon on urban transport. [3] The urban population of China accounts for close to 45 percent (601 million) of the country’s total number of people. [4] China builds around 20 brand new cities each year and by the end of the decade plans to move ever greater numbers into its cities, building 40 billion square meters of floor space by 2025. [1] Between now and 2030, the percentage of people living in urban areas will increase strongly in China, from 45 to 60 percent. [4]
The 9th edition of the National Geographic Atlas of the World, published in 2011, termed the urban area of the world largest cities “megacities”. [7] According to UN-Habitat’s State of World Cities Report, launched at the World Urban Forum in Rio de Janeiro, the world’s biggest cities are merging into mega-cities. “Research shows that the world’s largest 40 mega-regions cover only a tiny fraction of the habitable surface of our planet and are home to fewer than 18% of the world’s population but account for 66% of all economic activity and about 85% of technological and scientific innovation.” Said report co-author Eduardo Lopez Moreno. “Mega-regions, rather than countries, are now driving wealth. The top 25 cities in the world account for more than half of the world’s wealth. Most of the wealth in rural areas already comes from people in urban areas sending money back.” “Just over half of the world now lives in cities.” Said outgoing UN-Habitat director Anna Tibaijuka. [8] The UN wrote in its 20011 report on global urbanization that between 2011 and 2050, the population living in urban areas is projected to gain 2.6 billion from today’s nearly 53 percent to 67 percent. [4] “By 2050, over 70% of the world will be urban dwellers, only 14% of people in rich countries will live outside cities and 33% in poor countries.” The growth of mega-cities, say the authors, is leading to unprecedented urban sprawl, the symptom of a divided dysfunctional city. The world’s first mega-city, says the report, is the Hong Kong-Shenhzen-Guangzhou region in China, comprised of Hong Kong, Shenhzen and Guangzhou, home to about 120 million people. [8] Shenzhen-Hong Kong is treated as separate urban areas principally because labor movement between the two is limited. “The five largest cities in India and China now account for 50% of those countries’ wealth.” Said Moreno. [8] Between 2011 and 2050, Asia is projected to see its urban population increase by 1.4 billion. [4]

  1. “Largest City In The World: China To Build Metropolis Twice The Size Of Wales”. Daily Mail. January 26, 2011. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1350483/Largest-city-world-China-build-metropolis-twice-size-Wales.html 
  2. Alexander, Ruth. “The World’s Biggest Cities: How Do You Measure Them?” BBC News. January 28, 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16761784 
  3. Foster, Peter and Moore, Macom. “China To Create Largest Mega City In The World With 42 Million People.” The Telegraph. January 24, 2011. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8278315/China-to-create-largest-mega-city-in-the-world-with-42-million-people.html 
  4. Hove, Tann and Vassigh, Alidad. “Urban Population Growth Between 1950 and 2030. City Mayors. August 7, 2012. http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/urban-population-intro.html 
  5. Jackers, Carl. “Top 10 Largest Cities In The World 2013—Metropolitan Populations.” American Live Wire. March 31, 2013. http://americanlivewire.com/top-10-largest-cities-in-the-world-2013/
  6. Peach, Joe. “Megacities: Five Of The World’s “Biggest” Cities”. This Big City. May 14, 2012. http://thisbigcity.net/megacities-five-of-the-worlds-biggest-cities/ 
  7. Rosenberg, Matt. “The World’s Largest Megacities”. About.com. January 2, 2012. http://geography.about.com/od/worldcities/a/Largest-Cities-In-The-World.htm 
  8. Vidal, John. “UN Report: World’s Biggest Cities Merging Into “Mega-Regions”. The Guardian. Monday March 22, 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/22/un-cities-mega-regions


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