More than half the world's population lives in cities
New York City (AsiaNews/Agencies) - More than half the world's population lives in cities and India and China are expected to lead the future growth in urbanisation.
Therefore, the world must prepare for the challenges of ever-larger cities in terms of health, education, food and housing, this according to 2014 revision of the World Urbanisation Prospects released on Thursday.
Until now, China contributed the most to rapid urbanisation. However, India is projected to add the highest number of people to its urban population by 2050, ahead of China, with 404 million more people in its cities.
This year, Delhi (pictured) has already become the second largest city in the world - 25 million - twice what it was in 1990.
Mumbai, with 20.7 million inhabitants, is India's other Indian mega cities among the top 10 most populous cities.
Tokyo tops the report's list of megacities, with a population of more than 37.8 million, and should remain first until 2030. Shanghai is second at 23 million, followed by Mexico City and Sao Paulo (Brazil) with 21 million.
Beijing, New York (with Newark) Osaka and Cairo are in the top-ten list.
Over all, India, China and Nigeria will account for 37 percent of the projected growth of the urban population between now and 2050 when the world's urban population is expected to crest at 6.3 billion.
The pace of urbanisation has been remarkably swift. In 1950, only 30 percent of the world's people lived in cities. That has grown to 54 percent in 2014.
The overall numbers of rural inhabitants are projected to decline to 3.1 billion in 2050 from 3.4 billion today.
.png)
