Primary author:
Joel Kotkin
Contributing authors:
Wendell Cox, Ali Modarres, Aaron M. Renn
Editor:
Mandy Shams
Research:
Clinton Stiles-Schmidt, Haley Wragg , Grace Kim,
Zohar Liebermensch, Dylan Cox
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be
reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or any information
storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented,
without written permission from the Publisher and the
Center for
C Demographics
HA P M A and
N Policy.
PRESS
PRESS
UNIVERSITY
Special thank you to Roger Hobbs,
P R E SAnn
S Gordon and Lenae Reiter
C HA P M A N
UNIVERSITY
PRESS
2014
PRESS
C HATHE
PM
AN
PROBLEM WITH MEGACITIES
UNIVERSITY
PRESS
1
C HA P M A N U N I V E R S I T Y
Center for Demographics and Policy
C HA P M A N U N I V E R S I T Y
Center for Demographics and Policy
“Demographics is destiny” has become somewhat an overused
phrase, but that does not reduce the critical importance of
population trends to virtually every aspect of economic, social
and political life. Concern over demographic trends has been
heightened in recent years by several international trends —
notably
rapid aging,
fertility, large scale
migration
across
Center
forreduced
Demographics
and
Policy
borders. On the national level, shifts in attitude, generation and
ethnicity have proven decisive in both the political realm and in
the economic fortunes of regions and states.
C HA P M A N U N I V E R S I T Y
The Center focuses research and analysis of global, national and
regional demographic trends and also looks into policies that
might produce favorable demographic results over time. In
addition it involves Chapman students in demographic research
under the supervision of the Center’s senior staff. Students work
with the Center’s director and engage in research that will serve
them well as they look to develop their careers in business, the
social sciences and the arts. They will also have access to our
advisory board, which includes distinguished Chapman faculty
and major demographic scholars from across the country and
the world.
2
CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY • CENTER FOR DEMOGRAPHICS AND POLICY
C
U
Center
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Author and Contributors.......................................................................................................... 4
Student Research Assistants..................................................................................................... 5
Executive Summary......................................................................................................... 7
Urban and Economic Context.................................................................................... 7
The Evolution of Megacities........................................................................................ 9
Health and Quality of Life........................................................................................... 12
The Problems of Gigantism...................................................................................... 14
The Infrastructure Challenge................................................................................... 14
The City of Disappointment...................................................................................... 15
Is there a better alternative?.................................................................................... 16
Footnotes and Sources.............................................................................................................22
THE PROBLEM WITH MEGACITIES
3
AUTHOR:
Joel Kotkin is an internationally-recognized authority on global, economic, political and
social trends, Joel Kotkin is the author of the forthcoming THE NEW CLASS CONFLICT,
to be published by Telos Press Publishing. His last book THE NEXT HUNDRED MILLION:
America in 2050 explores how the nation will evolve in the next four decades. His previous,
also critically acclaimed book, was THE CITY: A GLOBAL HISTORY. Mr. Kotkin is the
Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University in Orange,
California and Executive Editor of the widely read website www.newgeography.com. He
writes the weekly “New Geographer” column for Forbes.com. He is a Senior Visiting Fellow
at the Civil Service College in Singapore. He serves on the editorial board of the Orange
County Register and writes a weekly column for that paper, and is a regular contributor to
the Daily Beast.
CONTRIBUTORS:
Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, a St. Louis based international public policy
consulting firm. He is co-author of the Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey
and author of Demographia World Urban Areas. He has conducted research on demographics
and urban policy and is a frequent commentary contributor, having been published in the Daily
Telegraph, the Wall Street Journal, the National Post (Toronto), the Los Angeles Times and
others. Wendell Cox is also author of the Evolving Urban Form series in newgeography.com.
He was appointed to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission,
where he served with the leading city and county officials as the only non-elected member.
He was also appointed to the Amtrak Reform Council and has served as a visiting professor
at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers (CNAM), a national university in Paris.
Photos on pages 12-15 courtesy of Mr. Cox.
Ali Modarres is the Director of Urban Studies at University of Washington Tacoma. He
is a geographer and landscape architect, specializing in urban planning and policy. He has
written extensively about social geography, transportation planning, and urban development
issues in American cities.
Aaron M. Renn is an analyst and writer on urban affairs who publishes the Urbanophile
(www.urbanophile.com) and runs the urban data analytics platform Telestrian (www.
telestrian.com). He was formerly a partner at the global consultancy Accenture.
4
CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY • CENTER FOR DEMOGRAPHICS AND POLICY
Wilkinson College of Humanities and Social Sciences is committed to the larger university effort
aimed at providing students with access to key researchers. Undergraduate research encompasses
both scholarship and creative activity, and has the ability to capture student interest, create
enthusiasm for and engagement in, an area of study.
An important aspect of the building undergraduate research networks (BURN) program is to
embed students within active research groups engaging students in collaborative research across
all disciplines in wilkinson college. This gives students extraordinary opportunities to develop
their skills, broaden their knowledge, and participate in research in practical and demonstrable
ways. Our desire is to create a framework that allows students to experience, and contribute in,
original intellectual or creative research impacting their discipline.
The ethos of BURN is to facilitate research at the individual and group levels.
STUDENT RESEARCH ASSISTANTS:
Special Thanks to the Chapman University students who worked on the project:
Dylan Cox, B.A. Economics, B.S. Business Administration. Graduate 2014.
Zohar Liebermensch, BA in Economics and a BS in Business Administration with
minors in Computational Sciences and University Honor's Program.
Anticipated Graduation ,2015
Clinton Stiles-Schmidt, BS in Business Administration, Double Emphasis: Real Estate
and Finance, BA in Economics. Anticipated Graduation, 2015
Haley Wragg, BA in Business Marketing and Entrepreneurship.
Anticipated Graduation December, 2014.
THE PROBLEM WITH MEGACITIES
5
6
CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY • CENTER FOR DEMOGRAPHICS AND POLICY
❰ Shantytown - Rio de Janeiro
over 10M
7.2 %
5M – 10M
4.2 %
1M – 5M
11.3 %
Rural
4.1%
46.6 %
500k –1M
11.1%
100 – 500k
15.7%
F1
<100k
nearby regional markets. As a result,
the rise of megacities in the developing
world may be laying
the foundation
forAreas in Millions • Megacities: 20
Urban
Population
an emerging crisis of urbanity, where
people crowd 40
into giant 37.56
cities that lack
of the economic and political infrastruc35their lives. At the end
ture to improve
of this paper, we try to suggest29.96
that they
30
may be better solutions that steer growth
to smaller cities and towns, and even
seek out ways 25
to improve the life in 24.13 22.99 22.71 22.65
21.59 20.66
rural villages.
20.30
2. CN
Shenzhen
12.86
3. NGTHE
Lagos
12.55
PROBLEM WITH MEGACITIES
4. CN
5. TH
Beijing, BJ
Bangkok
19.28
14.91
56.1%
7
48.2%
47.6%
45.2%
Mexico City
PK
New York
Cities have grown exponentially in
size and population
since 1800. Then,
10
approximately 5% of the world’s popula4 By 2015, the world’s
tion lived in cities.
5
urban population will approach 55%.
In 1800, only Beijing
had a population
0
JP
ID
IN
KR
PH
CN
exceeding 1,000,000. Today, that number
has increased to more than 450, and the
largest, Tokyo, exceeds 35 million.5
Cities have played a critical role in
increasing the standard of living for peoFastest Growing Megacities: 2000 – 2014
ple who, in rural isolation, often barely
6
existed
little above a2014
subsistence
# GEO City
Populationlevel.
in Millions ‘00–’10 growth
This process accelerated rapidly in the
1. PK Karachi
21.59
80.5%
years following 1800, when the scientific,
Karachi
15
Shanghai
Urban and economic context
Manila
20
Seoul
Delhi
Jakarta
No phenomenon more reflects the
sheer power and appeal of urbanism than
the rise of megacities, which we define as
an urban area with more than 10 million
residents (defined as areas of continuous urban development)1. Until recent
decades there were only three — Tokyo
and New York, joined by a third, Mexico
City, only in 1975. Now the megacity has
become a global phenomenon that has
dispersed around the planet. There were
29 such cities in 2014 and now account
for roughly 13% of the world’s urban
population and 7% of the world’s total
population (Figure 1).
Urban boosters such as Harvard’s Ed
Glaeser suggest that megacities grow because “globalization” and “technological
change have increased the returns to being smart.” 2 And to be sure, megacities
such Jakarta, Kolkata (in India), Mumbai,
Manila, Karachi, and Lagos — all among
the top 25 most populous cities in the
world — present a great opportunity
for large corporate development firms
who pledge to fix their problems with
ultra-expensive hardware. They also provide thrilling features for journalists and
a rich trove for academic researchers.
Like Mr. Glaeser, many Western
pundits find much to celebrate about
the megacities mushrooming in
low-income countries. To them, the
growth of megacities is justified because
it offers something more than unremitting rural poverty. But surely there’s a
better alternative than celebrating slums,
as one prominent author did recently
in Foreign Policy bizarrely entitled “In
Praise of Slums”3.
As demonstrated in our new paper
on global cities developed with the Civil
Service College of Singapore, many of
these emergent megacities in Africa and
elsewhere in the developing world lack of
an economic basis sufficient to substantially compete beyond their national or
World Population by Urban Area Size: 2014
Tokyo
Executive Summary
US
MX
F1
technological, industrial and medical
advances nurtured the growth of cities.
As urban economist Edwin Mills has
shown, urbanization brought in its
wake improved incomes, more employment opportunities, and created conditions
that Area
made business
investments
World Population by Urban
Size: 2014
more lucrative. 7
How cities developover
will10M
shape life
even more in the future. Over the next 35
5M – 10M
years,
growth will
7.2
% all world population
4.2
%
be in cities. Today, there are nearly 4 bil1M – 5M
lion dwellers, and by 2050 there will be
11.3 %
6.3 billion, according to United Nations
(UN) projections. Rural populations
500k –1M
4.1to
% decline
are expected
by 300 million.8
Rural 46.6 %
Nearly 95%of the city growth is expected
11.1%the more developed world.
to be outside
100
– 500k
This places enormous
importance
on
megacities that are rising in these places.
15.7%with the substantial progress in
Even
reducing world poverty, 9<100k
the concentration of growth in lower income cities
presents formidable challenges for both
policy makers and those who live there.
As suggested in our aforementioned
global cities paper, many of these cities
are not well-suited to compete not only
with established global hubs as New York
or London, but also with much smaller,
more efficient and productive global cities such as Singapore, the San Francisco
Bay Area, Hong Kong, and even Seattle.
This lack of global reach — and the
extensive poverty often associated with
such developing world places — suggests
that perhaps the enthusiasm about the
emerging megacuities expressed in some
accounts may be misplaced. A recent
National Geographic article, for example,
celebrated the entrepreneurial spirit of
Kinshasa’s slum dwellers, which is understandable, but underplayed the miserable conditions in which the majority of
Kinshasa’s 9 million residents are forced
to live. That city, which Belgian researchers described as an example of “aborted
urban development,” suffers from high
crime, poor drinking water, and pervasive informal housing. Similar conditions
40
37.56
35
Tokyo
Urban Population Areas in Millions • Megacities: 2014
29.96
0
JP
ID
8
IN
PK
CN
CN
IN
JP
15.89
Moscow
Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto
BR
5
Mumbai
MX
10
Guangzhou-Foshan
US
19.28 18.32
17.67 17.23
Beijing
Sao Paulo
CN
Mexico City
PH
New York
KR
15
21.59 20.66
20.30 20.27
Karachi
Shanghai
20
22.99 22.71 22.65
Manila
24.13
Delhi
25
Seoul
Jakarta
30
RU
CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY • CENTER FOR DEMOGRAPHICS AND POLICY
Fastest Growing Megacities: 2000 – 2014
Probable Future Megacities: 2025 a
and 2030
F7
Growth: 2000–2010
are poised to move from the countryside.
exist in many of Africa’s largest cities,
United Nations projections indicate that
which are growing as fast as any in the
India’s urban population will increase
world.10 Even in those megacities — for
nearly 250 million in 20 years, while
example Mexico City, SaoPaulo MumChina’s will increase 200 million, even
bai, Kolkata — that have enjoyed strong
& Smaller
City Growth:
2000–2010
as national
population
growth rates
slow
growth in recent decades, the pace of Megacity
with
Greater
Growth
and even
stall
(in theSmaller
case of City
China).12
expansion seems to be slowing. This isLarge Nations
particularly evident in the once much
The evolution of megacities
heralded BRICs countries — Brazil,
35%Russia, India, China and South Africa. Many
The modern megacity may have been
of these countries over the past 2 30%
years
largely
an invention of the West, but it’s
that have seen their growth rates slacken,
25%
increasingly
to be found largely in the
often by as much as 50%, from a decade
East. The seven largest megacities are
earlier. This can be seen most notably
20%
located in Asia, based on a roundup of
in places such as Istanbul, whose long
the latest population data. The largest
15%
property boom, both in residential
and
megacity remains the Tokyo-Yokohama
commercial construction, appears to be
10%
area, home to 38 million, followed by
winding down. Some analysts compare
the
Indonesian capital of Jakarta, Delhi,
the situation in some of these countries
5%
Seoul,
Manila and Shanghai (Figure 2).
to that faced in southern Europe, and the
With roughly 21 million inhabitants,
0%
United States, leading up to the bursting
Brazil
Mexico
Turkey United States
the Egypt
New YorkIndia
urban area
was the
world’s
of the property bubble. 11
largest urban agglomeration from early
Yet, despite these problems, we
Cities
in the 20thMegacities
century
until
Tokyo surshould urban growth to continue to be
10M+
100,000–1M
passed
it
in
the
1950s,
now
ranks eighth.
strong as hundreds of millions of people
Sources: See Demographia World Urban Areas (demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf)
NG
BR
JP
GB
F2
CN
London
TR
Paris
IR
Nagoya
AR
Rio de Janeiro
BD
Lagos
Dhaka
IN
Shenzhen
Kolkata
TH
Istanbul
Bangkok
EG
Tehran
Cairo
US
Buenos Aires
Los Angeles
15.25 15.21 14.91 14.90 14.82
13.91 13.43 13.19 12.86
12.55 11.72
10.98 10.24 10.15
FR
THE PROBLEM WITH MEGACITIES
Megacity, Other City & Rural Population
9
Fastest Growing Megacities: 2000 – 2014
0
JP
ID
IN
KR
PH
CN
PK
US
City
2014 Population in Millions ‘00–’10 growth
1. PK Karachi
21.59
80.5%
2. CN Shenzhen
12.86
56.1%
3. NG Lagos
12.55 2000 – 2014 48.2%
Fastest Growing Megacities:
4. CN Beijing, BJ
19.28
47.6%
# 5.
GEO
in Millions ‘00–’10 growth
THCity
Bangkok 2014 Population
14.91
45.2%
1. 6.PKBDKarachi
21.59
80.5%
Dhaka
14.82
45.2%
2. 7.CNCNShenzhen
56.
1%
Guangzhou-Foshan 12.86
18.32
43.0%
3. 8.NGCNLagos
12.55
48.2%
Shanghai
22.65
40.1%
4. 9.CNIN Beijing,
19.28
47.6%
Delhi BJ
24.13
39.2%
5.10.THID Bangkok
14.91
45.2%
Jakarta
29.96
34.6%
6.11.BDTRDhaka
14.82
45.2%
Istanbul
13.19
25.3%
7. CN Guangzhou-Foshan
18.32
43.0%
Sources: See Demographia World Urban Areas (demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf)
8. CN Shanghai
22.65
40.1%
9. IN Delhi
24.13
39.2%
10. ID Jakarta
29.96
34.6%
The only other western urban areas
11. TR Istanbul
13.19
25.3%
F3
# GEO
F3
among the 29 megacities now are Moscow (15th), Los Angeles (16th), Istanbul
Sources: SeeUrban
Demographia
World Urban Areas
(demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf)
Population:
Latin
America
(23rd), Paris (27th), and London (29th).
South and Central America 1950 – 2050
Instead, the fastest-growing megacities
over the past decade have been primarily
100%
Urban Share of Population
Urban Share of Population
90%
80%
Urban Population: Latin America
70%
South and Central America 1950 – 2050
60%
50%
100%
40%
90%
30%
80%
10%
60%
50%0%
F4
20%
70%
1950
1975
2000
2025
2050
40%
30%
20%
F4
10%
0%
1950
1975
2000
10
2025
2050
CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY • CENTER FOR DEMOGRAPHICS AND POLICY
Mos
M
Osaka-Kobe-
5
Guangzhou-
M
10
in the developingProbable
world. Karachi,
PakiFuture
Megacities: 20
stan,
growth
MXhas led
BR theCN
CN charge,
IN with
JP a RU
By 2025
By 2
remarkable 80% expansion
in its population from 2000
—
2010.
The
growth
GEO City
GEO City
economies of China
and
India
dominate
CN Chengdu
CN
Hang
the rest of the list of most rapidly growCN Dongguan
CN
Wuh
ing megacities.Probable
Future Megacities: 2025
CN Tianjin has the most
CO
Bogo
China, not surprisingly,
megacities of any
country,
four.
The
CD ByKinshasa
IN By Ahm
2025
203
second fastest-growing
megacity
over
GEOIN City
GEO
City
Bangalore
ZA
Joha
the past decade, Shenzhen, was a small
CNIN Chengdu
CNUS Hangzh
Chennai
Chic
fishing village not long ago that became
CNXiaoping’s
IN Dongguan
Hyderabad
a focus of Deng
first wave of CN Wuhan
modernizationCNpolicies.
In 1979 it had
CO
Bogota
PK Tianjin
Lahore
13 now it is a
roughly 30,000
people;
CDPE Kinshasa
IN
Ahmed
Lima
thriving metropolis of 13 million whose
INVN Bangalore
ZA
Johann
Chi Minh
City
population in the
pastHo
decade
grew
56%.
IN so recent
Chennaiand quick that US Chicag
Its rise has been
Sources:
See
Demographia
the Asia Society
labeled
it “a World
city Urban Areas (demograph
IN hasHyderabad
14
without a history”.
PK Lahore
Older Chinese cities are also growing
PE Lima
rapidly. Shanghai,
a cosmopolitan world
VN Ho
Minh City
city decades before
theChi
Communist
takeover of the country, expanded almost
Sources:The
See Demographia
World Urban Areas (demographia.
50% since 2000.
ancient capital
Beijing and the southern commerce and
industrial hub of Guangzhou
grewPopulation
nearly
World Urban
as rapidly.
by Urban Area Size: 2014
India matches Japan with three
megacities, but they are all growing
100k
much faster. The<population
of Delhi,
13.4 %
the world’s fourth-largest city, expand29.3
%
ed 40% over the World
past decade;
Mumbai,
Urban
Population
7.8 %
almost 20%; andby
Kolkata
roughly
Urban Area 10%,
Size: 2014
a relatively low rate for a city in a developing country.
Other rapidly
growing megacities
<100k
are scattered throughout the developing 13.4 % 21.1%
29.3its% popuworld. In Nigeria, Lagos saw
7.8 %
lation swell by over 48% over the20.8
past
%
7.6
%
decade; the Thai capital of Bangkok and
100 – 500k
Dhaka, Bangladesh, both grew some
45%. The world’s second-largest megac21.1%
ity, Jakarta, expanded 34% and is now
approaching 30 million (Figure 3).
As in the rest of the world,20.8
the%rise
of megacities in Latin America paral- 7.6 %
100 – 500kthroughout the
lels rapid urbanization
29.96
Jakarta
Tokyo
37.56
F5
13.4 %
29.3 %
THE PROBLEM WITH MEGACITIES
5M – 10M
117.8 %
Cairo
Los Angeles
Moscow
Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto
Mumbai
Guangzhou-Foshan
Beijing
Sao Paulo
Mexico City
New York
Karachi
F3
Shanghai
Manila
Seoul
Delhi
region. The UN Population Division
Bangkok at US$23,000 — will continue
estimates
to grow, at least until their populations
24.13 that over 80% of the Latin
22.99 22.71 now
22.65resides in urAmerican population
begin to see the results of decreasing
21.59 20.66
20.27
ban areas and that 87% will live in cities 20.30 birthrates.
19.28 18.32
17.23
by 2050. Argentina will reach the highest
United Nations17.67
growth
projections
15.89
15.25 15.21 14
urbanization rate by 2050, at 95% . Put
to 202518 suggest that the future list of
into perspective, this means that more
megacities (Figure 5) will be dominated
than 19 of every 20 Argentines will live
by such lower-income cities. In fact, 10
in cities. The urbanization rates of other
more megacities are likely to emerge by
Latin American countries will not fall
2025, including Lima (Peru) , Kinshasa
far behind: Chile, Brazil, Venezuela and
(Democratic Republic of the Congo),
Uruguay will also surpass 90%, and MéxTianjin, Chengdu and Dongguan (China),
Ecuador,
(India),
and HyderJP
IDico, Panama,
IN
KR Colombia,
PH
CN
PK Perú,
US
MX Chennai
BR
CN
CN Bangalore
IN
JP
RU
US
EG
T
and Suriname will exhibit urbanization
abad (India), Lahore (Pakistan) and Ho
rates above 80% (Figure 4).15
Chi Minh City (Vietnam). If the projectIn contrast, high-income countries
in Europe and the United States, where
population
is more reliable,
wing Megacities:
2000tracking
– 2014
Probable Future Megacities: 2025 and 2030
grew relatively slowly. The only megacities
a purchasing
power adjusted
By 2025
By 2030
2014 Population
in with
Millions
‘00–’10 growth
GDP of over US$40,000 that registered
GEO City
GEO City
21.59
80.5%
population growth over 10% between
CN Chengdu
CN
Hangzhou
12.86
56.1%and Moscow,
2002 and 2012 were London
CN Dongguan
CN
Wuhan
which has expanded rapidly
12.55
48.2%as the center
of Russia’s resource-led47.6%
boom. The popuCN Tianjin
CO
Bogota
19.28
lation of Paris grew 8%; Los Angeles,
CD Kinshasa
IN
Ahmedabad
14.91
45.2%
6%; and New York, barely 3% over the
IN
Bangalore
ZA
Johannesburg-East Rand
14.82
45.2%
past decade.16
IN
Chennai
US
Chicago
Foshan 18.32 Japan, one of the world’s
43.0% most urbanized
major
countries,
has
also
logged
IN
Hyderabad
22.65
40.1%
slower growth. Tokyo, the great outlier in
PK
Lahore
24.13
39.2%
that country’s stagnant population proPE Lima
29.96
34.6%
file, expanded 7%, Nagoya
grew 6%, and
VN Ho Chi Minh City
Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto a weak
2%. The rapid
13.19
25.3%
population depletion in the rest of the
country and a lack of immigrants suggest
World Urban Areas (demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf)
Sources: See Demographia World Urban Areas (demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf)
that Japan’s great cities will grow even
slower in the years ahead, as the country
runs short on migrants from rural areas
ed population growth rates are sustained
and young people in general.17
through 2030, six additional megacities
So what do the numbers tell us about
could be added to the list, including Chithe
future
of
megacities?
For
one
thing,
cago (United States), Bogota (Colombia),
lation: Latin America
it’s
clear
that
the
most
rapid
growth
is
Johannesburg-East
Rand (South Africa),
ntral America 1950 – 2050
taking place in countries that still have
Wuhan and
Hangzhou
and
World Urban(China),
Population
large rural hinterlands and relatively
Ahmedabad
(Figure
5). 2014
by (India).19
Urban Area
Size:
young populations. These poor placBut this rapid growth can not always
over 10M
es — most with median incomes bebe taken for granted. Some megacities
tween Dhaka at US$3,100 per capita and
in the low
and middle-income world
<100k
❰ Dhaka
already seem to have reached a point
of saturation. A generation ago, it was
widely predicted that Mexico City would
become the world’s largest city, with
some 30 million people by the beginning
of the 21st Century. Yet its growth has
slowed to a modest rate, and is current
population is 20 million. Lower Mexican
birthrates and the development of other
urban alternatives have made La Capital far less of a growth hub than once
imagined.20 Similar processes can be
seen elsewhere in Latin America, where
fertility rates have been dropping to
levels closer to American and Northern
European norms , but not yet those of the
ultra-low Japan or Southern European
countries. Over the past decade (20002010) population growth was 15% in Sao
Paulo, 12% in Mexico City, and 10% in
Rio de Janeiro. These are huge declines
from their peak growth rates between
1965 and 1975 when Sao Paulo grew
75%, Mexico City 60%and Rio de Janeiro
40%.21 These cities will continue to grow,
but at reduced rates.
The best-positioned megacities in the
coming decades are likely to be Chinese,
and (to a lesser extent) those in India.
China’s megacities all enjoy per capita
incomes above US$20,000 and the vast
scale of the country’s rural population
suggests there is still room for growth.
It will be perhaps another decade or so
before the country’s low birthrate catches
up with it, and slows urban growth down
to western or Japanese levels.
India’s cities, notably Mumbai and
Delhi, are not as wealthy as China’s, but
are clearly getting richer, with Delhi
getting close to the US$10,000 per capita
income level. With a somewhat higher birthrate than its Chinese or South
American counterparts and its continuing rural to urban migration, Indian
cities can be expected to continue more
rapidly at least for the next decade or so.
12
CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY • CENTER FOR DEMOGRAPHICS AND POLICY
These trends, of course, may be
altered by any number of developments,
including the possible threats to cities
from wars, environmental challenges
or other large-scale disruptions. But
we can say, with some confidence, that
the world’s megacities will continue to
become increasingly dominated by Asia
and Africa , reflecting the protean nature
of an urban growth pattern that continues to de-emphasize slower-expanding
regions in the Americas, Japan and, of
course, Europe.
Health and Quality of life
Increasinglythe megacity is increasingly a phenomena of countries that
are struggling to find their way in the
modern world economy. Size used to be
more correlated with economic and political success and dominance on a global
scale. Today, some of the largest cities are
disproportionately poor, and seem likely
to remain that way for the foreseeable
future. Such problems are often ignored
or minimized by those who inhabit what
commentator Rajiv Desai has described
as “the VIP zone of cities”, where there
is “reliable electric power, adequate water
supply and any sanitation at all”. Outside
the zone, Mr. Desai notes, even much
of the middle class have to “endure
inhuman conditions” of congested,
cratered roads, unreliable energy and
undrinkable water. 22
These conditions reflect the inability of such megacities to handle rapid
growth. Places like Dhaka, which gains
as many as 400,000 new migrants from
the villages annually, grows mainly in
its slum, whose residents move to the
megacity not for the bright lights, but to
escape hopeless poverty, and even the
threat of starvation, in their village.23
Some argue that these migrants are
better off than previous slum-dwellers
Los Angeles ❱
since they ride motorcycles and have
cell phones. Yet access to the wonders
of transportation and “information
technology” is unlikely to compensate
for physical conditions that are demonstrably worse than those endured even by
Depression-era poor New Yorkers who at
least could drink water out of a tap and
expect consistent electricity, something
not taken for granted by their modern
day counterparts in Manila or Mumbai.24
More serious still, the slum-dwellers
face a host of health challenges that recall
the degradations of Dickensian London.
Residents of mega-cities face enormous
risk from epidemics and unsafely built
environments. Traffic, as anyone who
has spent time in these cities easily
notices, poses particular threats to riders
and pedestrian as alike. According to
researchers Tim and Alana Campbell,
developing countries now experience a
“neglected epidemic” of road-related injuries accounting for 85% of the world’s
traffic fatalities.25
This can be seen by examining one
of the world’s most intriguing, important
and, in many ways, highly challenged
megacities — Mumbai. One telling
indication of the difficulties the newcomers face is the relatively low level of
life expectancy in the city — roughly
57 years — which is nearly seven years
below the national average.26 Gaps in
life expectancy could be found in other
developing world megacities, including
Tehran, Cairo, and Buenos Aires.27
Even with solid economic growth,
megacities have not have become better
places to live. In 1971, slum-dwellers
accounted for one in six Mumbaikers;
now they constitute an absolute majority.
Inflated real estate prices drive even fairly
decently employed people into slums. A
modest one-bedroom apartment in the
Mumbai suburbs, notes R. N. Sharma
of the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of
Social Sciences, averages around 10,000
Rupees a month, double the average
worker’s monthly income.
Similar, if somewhat less dire problems, can be seen in the megacities of the
other great rising global power, China. Dense urbanization, notes a recent
Chinese study, engenders more obesity,
particularly among the young, who get
less exercise, and spend more time deskbound. Stroke and heart disease have
become leading causes of death.28
Perhaps the best known result from
intensified urbanization can be seen outside any window: pervasive air pollution.
This problem has become so severe that
it has led, even in authoritarian China,
to growing grass-roots protests, many
of them targeted at new industrial plants
and other facilities located near cities
such as Shanghai, Dalian, and Hangzhou. High degrees of pollution have led
at least some affluent urban Chinese to
move back towards the countryside
as well as to cleaner, less congested
regions in Australia, New Zealand and
North America.29
The health situation is even worse
in poorer megacities. Nearly two-thirds
of the sewage in the megacity of Dhaka,
with 15 million people, is untreated.30
Overall, the developing world like those
of the early industrial era, pose a major
health hazard to its residents. As Dr.
Marc Reidl, a specialist in respiratory
disease at UCLA, puts it, “megacity life
is an unprecedented insult to the immune system.”31
Denizens of these cities also live in
an environment with very little exposure
to nature. This (exposure to nature) has
both mental and physical health implications, studies have shown, with substantial benefits to city-dwellers. Sadly, many
developing cities have little such open
space, which itself has both negative
mental and physical health implications.32
THE PROBLEM WITH MEGACITIES
13
❰ Beijing
The Problems of Gigantism
Not surprisingly, the massive growth
in many emerging megacities — often accompanied by rapid densification and the
loss of cherished places — often occurs in
places that lack responsive structures to
deal with residents’ concerns.
In 2013, this issue came to a head
in Istanbul, which is the most rapidly
growing megacity in Europe. Faced with
plans to bulldoze parts of Gezi Park near
Taksim Square that is one of that ancient
city’s most beloved spots, major protests
erupted. This development was part of
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s
grandiose vision of the city as, “the
financial center of the world,” and the
park’s neighbors and supporters took
to the streets. The protests were directed against what has been described as
“authoritarian building”— the demolition
of older, more-human-scaled neighborhoods in favor of denser high-rise
construction, massive malls, and other
iconic projects.33
Other protests, usually more peaceful, but sparked by a similar revulsion
against gigantism, have erupted in the
megacities of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, and
São Paulo. There, local residents have
accused the Government of putting
mega-projects ahead of basic services
such as public transport, education, and
health care, particularly in the run-up
to the 2014 World Cup and the 2016
Olympics.34
Excessive concentration and ultra-rapid development also accentuates
the health problems discussed above. Air
pollution increases with density. 35 This
is most evident in Asia, which accounts
for half of the world’s most polluted
cities. Among the ranks of megacities,
Beijing and Shanghai rank among the
most polluted, with Delhi now suffering
the worst air conditions of any major city
in the world.36 High-density is associat-
14
CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY • CENTER FOR DEMOGRAPHICS AND POLICY
ed with higher rates of coronary disease,
as well as psychiatric disturbances, notes
a 2006 article evaluating the ecological
consequences of the land use changes in
Asia.37 In cities such as Manila, roughly
one in three residents lives in shanty-towns, with high degrees of infectious
diseases, including pneumonia, measles
and cholera, which far more rarely are
lethal in higher income countries.38
The Infrastructure Challenge
Arguably the biggest challenge facing
the emerging megacities lies in lagging
infrastructure. In the ultra-dense environment of developing country megacities, inadequate sanitation and poor
hospitals exacerbate the health problems.39 Traffic congestion is also worsening. Nearly half of Mumbai commuters
spend at least one or two hours to get to
work, far more than workers in smaller
rivals such as Chennai, or Hyderabad.
50% of formal sector workers in Mumbai
expressed the desire to move elsewhere,
in part to escape brutal train or car commutes; only a third of workers in other
cities expressed this sentiment.40
This suggests that megacities will
need massive new infrastructure development. This extends beyond simply
transportation. Many of these cities are
low-lying and prone to flooding. Incessant rain also causes drainage problems in megacities such as Mumbai and
Kolkata. The threat of higher sea levels,
according to some, suggests even greater
threats to these cities, as well as other
coast-hugging megacities such as Jakarta,
Manila and Lagos. Some experts project
flood losses worldwide are projected to
grow from US$6 billion per year in 2005
to in 2050 to US$52 billion.41
These cities continue to add population, without the infrastructure that
paralleled the growth of earlier western
cities. Sao Paolo, notes urban historian
Manila ❱
Peter Hall, has three times the population of London in its most dynamic period during the early 20th Century, yet has
a far less well-developed urban transport
system. In megacities such as Mexico
City, much of the growth has been in
less formal areas such as Nezahualcóyotl,
where titles to property were irregular
and basic services, such as water and
sewer , are regularly not provided to all
households.42
Under any circumstances, these
burgeoning cities will require enormous
investment. A recent McKinsey study
suggests that developing countries will
account for the bulk of US$10 trillion
more of capital investment required to
keep them running, even given slower
overall growth in their populations.43
The City of Disappointment
Historically, cities have served as
engines of opportunity. Yet, as we
demonstrated our global cities paper,
many of the largest cities in the high-income world, such as New York, are also
the most unequal.44 And Gotham’s
great rival, London, according to one recent study, now may be the most unequal
major city in the Western world. Overall,
in both the developing and high-income
world, notes a recent Euromonitor International study, (larger) “city size remains
the key explanatory factor for income
inequalities across the world’s urban
agglomerations”.45
These disparities are even more keenly felt in the developing world. Unlike
the burgeoning cities of the last century
— New York, London, Tokyo, Los Angeles
— the many new megacities lack a compelling economic logic. Industrial growth
paced much of the development of cities
in the high-income world, followed by an
explosion in business services. Industrial
growth also drove the development of
those in East Asia. In contrast, manufacturing is far less prevalent in places like
South Asia; its share of Indian GDP is
half that of China. 46
As a result many of the megacities
— including the fastest growing, Dhaka —
are essentially conurbations dominated
by very low income people; roughly 70%
of Dhaka households earn under US$170
a month, and many of them far less. “The
megacity of the poor,” is how the urban
geographer Nazrul Islam describes Dhaka, his home town.47 If they didn’t offer
more hope than the rural areas from
which the urban migrants have come,
these megacities would not be growing.
Although not generally as impoverished, many other megacities that we
might refer to as “middle income” are
also failing to create a better life for their
burgeoning populations. Places like
Tehran and Istanbul can be described
as “cities of disappointment”. In many
cases, high housing prices and a lack of
space have already reduced the birthrate to well-below the replacement level.
Increasingly, many women are choosing
to remain single—heretofore something
rare in these countries. 48
In poorer countries — where
much of the most rapid urban growth is
now taking place — the sense of disappointment may be even more profound.49
Indeed, much of the population of
most developing country cities — such
as Mexico City, Cairo, Jakarta, Manila,
Lagos, Mumbai, and Kolkata (all megacities) —continue to live in “informal”
housing that is often unhygienic, dangerous, and subject to all kinds of disasters,
natural or man-made. Moreover, many
of these unmanageable megacities —
most notably Karachi — offer ideal conditions for gang-led rule and unceasing
ethnic conflict.50
These pressures are further enhanced
by a lack of social mobility in many of
these cities. In Mexico City, only four out
of 100 persons whose parents belonged to
the 20%poorest sector of the population
THE PROBLEM WITH MEGACITIES
15
CN
CN
CD
IN
IN
Chengdu
Dongguan
Tianjin
Kinshasa
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
Lahore
Lima
Ho Chi Minh City
Hangzhou
CN
Wuhan
CO
Bogota
IN able
Ahmedabad
have been
to join the most wealthy
20%. ZA
Close Johannesburg-East
to 50%of those whoRand
were
born US
in theChicago
poorest level have not been
able to ascend socio-economically, and
close to 60%of those who were born in
PK
the richest level have not descended.51
Similarly, the trajectory of Mumbai’s
PE
middle class remains uncertain. One
VN
scholar, Jan Nijman, suggests that most
gains in recent years have accrued to the
Sources: See Demographia World Urban Areas (demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf)
upper echelons of the middle class while
“the ranks of the lower middle income
classes have shrunk, and the ranks of
the poor have expanded rapidly”. Much
of the growth in a perceived middle
F5
IN
100%
CN
World Urban Population
by Urban Area Size: 2014
<100k
13.4 %
29.3 %
5M – 10M
7.8 %
21.1%
1M – 5M
20.8 %
7.6 %
100 – 500k
F6
500k –1M
class, Mr.Nijman argues, is based not on
income but on consumption driven by
credit.52 As in Mexico, much of the new
employment is in the “informal sector”,
that is, jobs that frequently lack any
real social benefits. The informal sector — drivers, stall-owners, repair-people, household industries — account for
much of the employment growth in both
Mumbai and Mexico City. 53
Researcher Vatsala Pant estimates a
16
CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY • CENTER FOR DEMOGRAPHICS AND POLICY
90%
80%
70%
monthly total household
“middle class
60%
income” in Mumbai
at
40—50,000
50%
Rupees; equivalent to less than $1000 US
40%
dollars. Yet monthly salaries for teachers,
30%
police officers and other mid-level jobs
20%
are often half that amount.
Not surpris10% of workers often
ingly, even these kinds
find themselves — given
the city’s high
0%
1980
housing prices — living1950
in slum 1960
neigh- 1970
borhoods, which are also known as jhopad-patti, jhuggi-jhopadi or busties.Rural
“It’s
Urban: Not Me
the dream of an immigrant for a place
in Mumbai… and ends up with a slum”,
she notes.54
Is there a better alternative?
Given these realities,Projected
perhaps wePopulation Grow
Megacities
might consider a different approach &
toOther Large Citi
urban growth. It is clear that urbanization will continue, but in what form?
Future urbanization25%
does not need to be
a choice between rural hopelessness and
urban despair.The rise
20%of a mass of poor
slum-dwellers — estimated as a high
as
21.2%
24.7%
1 billion — threatens the social stability
15%
not only of the countries they inhabit,
but the world, as they tend to generate
10%
high levels of both random
violence
and more organized forms of thuggery,
including terrorism. 5%
55
Planners often link density with
community, notes British social critic
0%
James Heartfield, but maintaining
that
MegaCities
Cities
Over 10M
5M – 10
“physical proximity that is essential
to
community is to confuse animal warmth
with civilization”, It may well be that a
more dispersed approach to urban development might make more sense. Many
megacities suffer from the impact of
what Lewis Mumford defined as “megalopolitan elephantitis,” a total loss of
human scale.56
Fortunately, an alternative structure
of urbanization is beginning to emerge,
one that emphasises a diversity of cities
as opposed to concentration in gigantic agglomerations. An impressive new
Projected Population Growth
over 10M
Share of National Populations
CN
Planners often link density with
community, notes British social critic
James Heartfield, but maintaining that
“physical proximity that is essential to
community is to confuse animal warmth
with civilization”
and demographically, as growth shifts to
577 “fast growing middleweights,” many
of them in China and India.
We can see this already in the shift
of industrial growth to smaller cities
in India. The national government has
established an objective of an additional 25 million jobs for the Indian auto
industry by 2016.62 It appears most will
go to other states, such as Gujarat (home
to newly elected Prime Minister Modi),
West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, enriching
cities such as Chennai and Ahmedabad,
but not Mumbai.63 Megacity & Smaller City Growth: 2000–2010
Large Nations with Greater Smaller City Growth
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
F7
Growth: 2000–2010
study by the McKinsey Global Institute,
called “Mapping the Economic Power
of Cities,” has found that, “contrary to
common perception, megacities have
not been driving global growth for the
past 15 years”. Many, the report concludes, have not grown faster than their
host economies. 57
The growing disconnect between
people and planners is illustrated by the
oft-ignored fact that around the world
the great majority of growth continues
to occur on the suburban and exurban
frontier, including the fringes of virtually all of the world’s megacities.58 This,
notes New York University (NYU)
professor Shlomo Angel in his landmark
book A Planet of Cities, is true both in
developing and developed countries.59 As
the World Bank has noted: “Cities became more packed and more sprawling at
the same time”. 60
There needs to be a far-greater
emphasis on smaller cities. After all,
worldwide megacities account for only
13%of urban residents. More than twice
as many people live in the middle-sized
urban areas with from 1 million — 10
million population, while 28%live in
urban areas with populations between
100,000 — 1 million. Finally, 29%of
urban residents live in urban areas with
fewer than 100,000 residents (Figure 6).61
Thus, the population of our now
half-urban world does not typically live
in the largest cities, but rather in smaller
towns and cities with fewer than 500,000
residents. Nearly four times as many
people live in smaller cities that few
are aware of, such as, Modesto (United
States), Gaoyou (China) , Kakinada (India) , Dire Dawa (Ethiopia) and countless
others. (Figure 6)
In the future, the biggest urban trend
may be away from megacities to smaller,
arguably more manageable, ones. In the
coming decade, McKinsey predicts megacities will underperform economically
Brazil
Egypt
India
Megacities
10M+
THE PROBLEM WITH MEGACITIES
Mexico
Turkey
United States
Cities
100,000–1M
17
Sources: See Demographia World Urban Areas (demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf)
Megacity, Other City & Rural Population
Share of National Populations: 1950 – 2010
Share of National Populations
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
F8
10%
0%
1950
1960
Rural
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
1980
Urban: Not Megacity
1990
2000
2010
Megacities
There are indications of substantially
muted megacity growth in some nations.
In Brazil, India, Mexico, Turkey and
Projected Population
Growth
the United
States, megacity population
Megacities & Other Large
2014
to that
2025
growthCities
was less
than
of cities with
from 1 million population to 10 million population between 2000 and 2010
(Figure 7).64 The difference was greatest
in the United States, where smaller city
growth was three times that of the two
megacities
and Los Angeles).
21.2%
24.7% (New York
22.0%
Indeed, since 1950, today’s megacities have tended to grow at a somewhat
lower rate than other, smaller cities
enjoying a growth rate 10% greater than
that of megacities. (Figure 8).
There are indications that smaller
cities may continue to grow faster than
megacities. Currently projected megacity
growth
rates are somewhat
below those
MegaCities
Cities
Cities
Over 10M
– 10M city categories
2.5M – 5M (Figure 9). In
for 5M
smaller
addition, growth may be slowing down
in the largest megacities of China. Recently released 2014 population estimates
indicate reductions in the annual growth
rates of both Shanghai and Beijing.65
F9
Projected Population Growth
25%
1970
18
CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY • CENTER FOR DEMOGRAPHICS AND POLICY
These realities lead some advocates
in developing countries to question the
logic of promoting megacities. The best
way to relieve the migration pressure
on Mumbai, and other developing world
cities, may be to improve the infrastructure and attractiveness of smaller cities,
the suburbs of mega-cities, and even
the villages.
Indeed in India, migration to large
cities is beginning to slow down, as more
potential migrants weigh the costs and
opportunities of making such a move as
opposed to staying closer to home66 and
in response to a national program to
provide greater unskilled employment
in rural areas.67 the recent (2011) census
of India indicated that an unprecedented number of villages had transitioned
from rural to urban (predominantly
non-agricultural employment).68 This
phenomenon has been called “rurbanization” and was an important provision
of the campaign of India’s new Prime
Minister Narendra Modi, who implemented such programs as Chief Minister
of the state of Gujarat. Mr. Modi speaks
of human settlements with the “heart of
a village” and developing “the facilities
of the city”.69 This phenomenon is also
occurring in China, with perhaps the
best example being Quangzhou in Fujian,
which is transitioning from a collection
of villages to an integrated urban area.70
This has occurred at lower population
densities and typically occurs when
growth is nearly exclusively driven by
migration from outside the urban area.
Ultimately, a shift towards dispersion — both within regions and between
them — could have a many positive
effects. It would allow people more living
space, and if employment also was also
dispersed, a quicker and less rigorous
commute, with related benefits gained
in time and energy conservation. The
potential benefits of dispersed economic
activity can be seen, for example, in the
F2
London
Nagoya
Pari
Rio de Jane
La
Shenz
Ista
Te
F8
Share of National Populations
BD
AR to three
IR
TR
CN
NG
BR
FR
JP
GB
have
two
servants.”
Mr. Datar suggests that developing
countries need to better promote the
growth of more manageable smaller
cities and try bringing more economic
opportunityMegacity,
to the villages.
One
does
Other
City
& Rural Population
not have toShare
be a Ghandian
idealist
to
of National Populations:
1950 – 2010
suggest that Ebenezer Howard’s “garden
city” concept — conceived as a response
100%
to miserable conditions in early 20th
90%urban Britain — may be better
Century
guide 80%
to future urban growth than the
current
trend of relentless concentration.
70%
The “garden city” alternative could
60%
help ameliorate the downsides of mass
50%
urbanization in China as well , where
40%
the government
is seeking to move 250
million30%
more people from the countryside to20%
urban areas over the next decade 10%
“There’s this feeling that we have to
modernize,
we have to urbanize and this
0%
is our national-development
strategy,”
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
said Gao Yu, China country director for
the Landesa Rural Development
Institute,
Urban: Not Megacity
Megacities
Rural
based in Seattle. Referring to the disastrous Maoist campaign to industrialize
overnight, he added, “it’s almost like
another Great Leap Forward”. 73
2010
Projected Population Growth
Megacities & Other Large Cities 2014 to 2025
25%
20%
21.2%
24.7%
22.0%
MegaCities
Over 10M
Cities
5M – 10M
Cities
2.5M – 5M
15%
10%
5%
0%
F9
Projected Population Growth
F5
F6
Buenos
K
B
Los A
EG of smallTH
IN
Netherlands, where a US
network
er cities across the country allows for a
dispersion of economic activities.71
One challenge for cities like Mumbai — economically, socially and especially environmentally
— may well be
egacities: 2025
and 2030
slower population growth. This would
Bylead
2030to a shift to smaller cities where
costs
are lower and workers’ wages go
GEO City
further.
CN
Hangzhou “We are inevitably getting more
competition from elsewhere”, notes R.
CN
Wuhan
Suresh Kumar, human resource manager
CO
Bogota
at Mumbai-based Associated Capsules.
“2000 Rupees a month means nothing in
IN
Ahmedabad
Mumbai, but in Uttar Pradesh it really is
ZA
Johannesburg-East
Rand
meaningful”.
US
Chicago
In the years ahead, companies like
Associated Capsules are likely to relocate
most operations to these cheaper areas. 72
Yet this process will also create a situation, as has occurred both in London and
Mexico City, where de-industrialization
will leave many new migrants without
ban Areas (demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf)
decent prospects for upward mobility
R.M. Sharma of the Tata Institute
of Social Sciences, notes that as manufacturing and other industries move to
smaller, more efficient and cost-effective
cities, they remove many middle-income
opportunities extending the gap between the megacity’s rich and poor. “The
boom that is happening is giving more
ulation
ze: 2014 to the wealthy. This is the ’shining India’
people talk over
about,”
10MSharma says. “But the
other part of it is very shocking, all the
families where there is not even food se13.4 %
curity. We5M
must
ask: The ‘Shining India’
– 10M
is for whom? “
7.8 % Ashok R. Datar, chairman of the
Mumbai Environmental Social Network
and a long-time advisor to the Ambani
corporate group, suggests that Asian
21.1
%
megacities
should stop emulating the ear1M – Western
5M
ly 20th Century
model of rapid,
dense urbanization. “We are copying the
7.6 %
Western experience in our own stupid
500k Mr.
–1MDatar says. “The poor
and silly way,”
gain on the rich. For every tech geek, we
RU
THE PROBLEM WITH MEGACITIES
19
Seoul ❱
Rejecting gigantism for its own sake,
“the garden city” promotes, where possible, suburban growth, particularly in
land-rich countries. It also can provide a
guide to more human-scale approach to
dense urban development. The “garden
The primary goal of a city should
not be to make wealthy landlords
and construction companies ever
richer, or politicians more powerful.
Nor should it be to elevate particular urban designs or strategies
above the well-being of people.
city”, for example, is a primary focus
in Singapore, Singaporean planners are
embracing bold ideas for decentralizing
work, reducing commutes and restoring
nearby natural areas.
These ideas may be most relevant
to cities on the cusp of rapid growth,
such as Hanoi. As we walk through the
high-density slums on the other side of
the dike that protects Hanoi from the
Red River, Giang Dang, founder of the
nonprofit Action for the City, tells me
that rapid growth is already degrading
the quality of Hanoi’s urban life, affecting everything from the food safety to
water to traffic congestion. Houses that
accommodated one family, she notes,
now often have two or three.
Expanding Hanoi’s current 3 million
people — already at least three times its
population in the 1980s — to say between 10 million and 15 million — may
thrill urban land speculators but may not
prove so good for city residents. Like
Mr. Datar, Ms. Dang favors expanding
conditions both smaller cities, and the
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CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY • CENTER FOR DEMOGRAPHICS AND POLICY
Vietnamese countryside. “The city is
already becoming unlivable,” Ms. Dang
insists. “More people, more high-rises
will not make it better. Maybe it’s time to
give up the stupid dream of the megacity”. Such voices are rarely heard in the
conversation about urban problems. But
they embrace an urban future with radical new thinking. Rather than foster an
urban form that demands heroic survival,
perhaps we should focus on ways to create cities that offer a more a healthful and
even pleasant life for their citizens.
This leads us to suggest we find new
ways to continue population de-concentration policies through dispersing
employment and better distribution of
urban amenities throughout a country.
In building or expanding new localities,
we need to value and pay attention to
human dignity, and not the latest urban
design and planning fad.
The primary goal of a city should
not be to make wealthy landlords and
construction companies ever richer, or
politicians more powerful. Nor should it
be to elevate particular urban designs or
strategies above the well-being of people.
Urbanism should not be defined by the
egos of planners, architects, politicians,
or the über-rich, who can cherry-pick the
best locales in gigantic cities. Urbanism
should be driven above all by what works
best for the most people.
THE PROBLEM WITH MEGACITIES
21
1. Urban areas are the city in its physical form, and include only developed areas. This is in contrast to the city in its economic
or functional form, which is called the metropolitan area (the labor market). Metropolitan areas include areas outside the
urban area (largely rural areas) from which employees are drawn to jobs within the urban area. There are no international standards with respect to delineating metropolitan areas. Urban areas are called “built up urban areas” in the United
Kingdom, “population centres” in Canada and unité urbaines in France.
2. Glaeser, Edward L . “Why Has Globalization Led to Bigger Cities?.” The New York Times. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.
com/2009/05/19/why-has-globalization-led-to-bigger-cities/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1&
(accessed June 21, 2014).
3. Kenny, Charles . “In Praise of Slums: Why millions of people choose to live in urban squalor..” Foreign Policy. http://www.
foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/13/in_praise_of_slums (accessed June 21, 2014).
4. United Nations Department of International Economic and Social Affairs. “Patterns of Urban and Rural Population Growth.”
United Nations. http://esa.un.org/unup/Archive/wup-archives/studies/United%20Nations%20(1980)%20-%20Patterns%20of%20Urban%20and%20Rural%20Population%20Growth.pdf (accessed June 21, 2014). .
5. “Demographia World Urban Areas.” Demographia. http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf (accessed June 21, 2104).
6. See for example, http://eml.berkeley.edu/~webfac/obstfeld/wu.pdf, http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/macro_online/
ms/ch5/del28487_ch05.pdf.,and Gregory Clark (2007), A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World
(Princeton Economic History of the Western World).
7. Mills, Edwin S. Urban economics. Glenview, Ill. Scott, Foresman, 1972.
8. “World Urbanization Prospects, the 2011 Revision.” United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population
Division, Population Estimates and Projections Section. http://esa.un.org/unup/ (accessed June 21, 2014).
9. Cox, Wendell. “Alleviating World Poverty: A Progress Report.” Newgeography.com. http://www.newgeography.com/content/003325-alleviating-world-poverty-a-progress-report (accessed June 21, 2014).
10. Odede, Kennedy. “Slumdog Tourism.” The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/opinion/10odede.
html?_r=0 (accessed June 21, 2014). ; Draper, Robert. “Kinshasa, Urban Pulse of the Congo.” National Geographic.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/kinshasa-congo/draper-text (accessed June 21, 2014). ; Lateef, A. S.
A., Max Fernandez-Alonso, Luc Tack, and Damien Delvaux. “Geological constraints on urban sustainability, Kinshasa City,
Democratic Republic of Congo.” Africa Museum. http://www.africamuseum.be/publication_docs/2010_Lateef-Kinshasa-PDF.pdf (accessed June 21, 2014).
11. Vela, Justin. “Cities of Dreams.” The Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230342
5504577353460769167448; (accessed June 21, 2014). ; Thomas Jr., Landon. “Alarm Over Istanbul’s Building Boom.”
The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/realestate/commercial/after-istanbuls-building-boomcome-worries-of-a-bust.html?_r=0 (accessed June 21, 2014).
12. “World Urbanization Prospects, the 2011 Revision.” United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population
Division, Population Estimates and Projections Section. http://esa.un.org/unup/ (accessed June 21, 2014).
13. Shenzhen Municipal E-government Resources Center. “Overview.” ShenZen Government Online. http://english.sz.gov.cn/gi/
(accessed June 21, 2014). /
14. Tam, Winsome. “The History of a ‘City Without History’.” Asia Society. http://asiasociety.org/business/development/history-city-without-history (accessed June 21, 2014).
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CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY • CENTER FOR DEMOGRAPHICS AND POLICY
15. “World Urbanization Prospects, the 2011 Revision.” United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population
Division, Population Estimates and Projections Section. http://esa.un.org/unup/ (accessed June 21, 2014).
One caveat: Estimating population for comparably defined urban areas, particularly in the developing world, can be
difficult. For example, there is considerable disagreement about the population of Lagos, where local officials claimed
there were twice as many people in 2005 as were counted in the 2006 Nigerian census. Add the “missing” 8 or more
million people and the population would be 22 million this year. The higher local count, however, has not been broadly
accepted. The population of Karachi is also disputed, with some claiming a somewhat lower population than reported.
Part of the problem is that the latest completely reported census in Pakistan was in 1998 with only spotty data released
from the most recent count.
16. . Istrate, Emilia, and Carey Anne Nadeau. “Global MetroMonitor 2012: Slowdown, Recovery, and Interdependence.” The
Brookings Institution. http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2012/11/30-global-metro-monitor (accessed June
21, 2014).
17. Cox, Wendell. “The Evolving Urban Form: Tokyo.” Newgeography.com. http://www.newgeography.com/content/002923the-evolving-urban-form-tokyo (accessed June 21, 2014).
18. From the United Nations, national census authorities and other sources.
19. Projection rates derived from the United Nations, national statistical agencies and US Conference of Mayors data.
20. “Mexico City Population 2014.” World Population Review. http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/mexico-city-population/ (accessed June 21, 2014). ; Kandell, Jonathan. La capital: the biography of Mexico City. New York: Random
House, 1988.
21. Calculated from data at “World Urbanization Prospects, the 2011 Revision.” United Nations, Department of Economic and
Social Affairs, Population Division, Population Estimates and Projections Section. http://esa.un.org/unup/ (accessed
June 21, 2014).
22. Desai, Rajiv. “Incredible India Indeed.” The Times of India. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/
Incredible-India-Indeed/articleshow/5232986.cms (accessed June 21, 2014).
23. German, Erik, and Solana Pyne. “Disasters drive mass migration to Dhaka.” GlobalPost. http://www.globalpost.com/
dispatch/asia/100831/bangladesh-megacities-part-three-migrant (accessed June 21, 2014).
24. Tortajada, Cecilia. “Challenges and Realities of Water Management of Megacities .” Journal of International Affairs 61, no.
2 (2008): 147. http://atl.imta.mx/aguadf/images/docs/10%20Challenges%20Mexico%20City.pdf (accessed June 21,
2014).
25. Campbell, Tim, and Alana Campbell. “Emerging Disease Burdens and the Poor in Cities of the Developing World.”Journal of
Urban Health 84, no. S1 (2007): 54-64. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17453349 (accessed June 21, 2014).
; Nepram, Binalakshmi. “Ending violence against women from Northeast India.” Tehelka.com. http://blog.tehelka.com/
ending-violence-against-women-from-northeast-india/ (accessed June 21, 2014). ;
26. Tembhekar, Chittaranjan. “Mumbaikars die younger than other Indians: Study.” The Times of India. http://timesofindia.
indiatimes.com/india/Mumbaikars-die-younger-than-other-Indians-Study/articleshow/5190726.cms?referral=PM
(accessed June 21, 2014).
THE PROBLEM WITH MEGACITIES
23
27. Fleming, Amy, and George Arnett. “Interactive map: do city residents live longer?.” theguardian.com. http://www.theguardian.com/cities/datablog/ng-interactive/2014/feb/24/interactive-map-do-people-living-in-cities-live-longer?CMP=twt_
gu (accessed June 21, 2014). ; population stats from “Demographia World Urban Areas.” Demographia . http://www.
demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf (accessed June 21, 2104).
28. TheHuffingtonPost.com. “China’s Young Adults Are Becoming More Obese.” The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/06/china-young-adult-obese_n_3711059.html (accessed June 21, 2014).
29. Dong, Liu. “Public outrage derailing China’s growing number of needed plants.” Global Times. http://www.globaltimes.cn/
content/803913.shtml#.UiN8Wj_9W1h (accessed June 21, 2014). ; Wong, Edward. “Urbanites Flee China’s Smog for
Blue Skies.” The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/world/asia/urbanites-flee-chinas-smog-forblue-skies.html?_r=1& (accessed June 21, 2014). ; Brinkley, Joel. “China’s Looming Crisis: Daunting Troubles Mount.”
World Affairs. http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/china%E2%80%99s-looming-crisis-daunting-troubles-mount
(accessed June 21, 2014). ; ; Johnson, Ian. “Wary of Future, Professionals Leave China in Record Numbers.” The
New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/world/asia/wary-of-future-many-professionals-leave-china.
html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 (accessed June 21, 2014).
30. Desouza, Kevin C.. “Our Fragile Emerging Megacities: A Focus on Resilience.” Planetizen: The Urban Planning, Design, and
Development Network. http://www.planetizen.com/node/67338?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_
campaign=02182014 (accessed June 21, 2014).
31. Critser, Greg. “A Pill For Los Angeles? Medicating the Megacities.” Newgeography.com. http://www.newgeography.com/
content/001742-a-pill-for-los-angeles-medicating-megacities (accessed June 21, 2014).
32. Paddock, Catharine . “Green spaces have long-lasting benefit for mental health.” Medical News Today. http://www.
medicalnewstoday.com/articles/271109.php (accessed June 21, 2014). ; “City Parks Boost Mood, Study Suggests;
Moving to greener urban areas was associated with mental-health improvements..” Consumer Health News [English]
January (2014). http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA355622748&v=2.1&u=chap_main&it=r&p=ITOF&sw=w&asid=b24cccb4b028d6c2711cf2ab60ed4fa0 (accessed June 21, 2014). ; Paddock, Catharine. “Green
Spaces Boost Wellbeing In Cities.” Medical News Today. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/259495.php
(accessed June 21, 2014).
33. “Istanbul Gezi Park plan to proceed - Turkish PM Erdogan.” BBC News. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22801548 (accessed June 21, 2014).; Kenyon, Peter. “In Booming Istanbul, A Clash Between Old And New.” NPR.
http://www.npr.org/2012/02/01/146153016/in-booming-istanbul-a-clash-between-old-and-new (accessed June
21, 2014).; Foxman, Simone, and Roberto A. Ferdman. “At the heart of Turkey’s political upheaval is a whirlwind of
authoritarian building.” Quartz. http://qz.com/90304/at-the-heart-of-turkeys-political-upheaval-is-a-whirlwind-of-authoritarian-building (accessed June 21, 2014). /
34. Cox, Wendell. “Smart Growth (Livability), Air Pollution and Public Health.” Newgeography.com. http://www.newgeography.
com/content/002462-smart-growth-livability-air-pollution-and-public-health (accessed June 21, 2014).
35. Qiu, Jane. “Megacities pose serious health challenge.” Nature.com. http://www.nature.com/news/megacities-pose-serious-health-challenge-1.11495 (accessed June 21, 2014).; “WHO most polluted cities list sees New Delhi smog trump
Beijing.” The Sydney Morning Herald. http://www.smh.com.au/environment/who-most-polluted-cities-list-sees-new-delhi-smog-trump-beijing-20140508-zr6k4.html (accessed June 21, 2014).
36. Qiu, Jane. “Megacities pose serious health challenge.” Nature.com. http://www.nature.com/news/megacities-pose-serious-health-challenge-1.11495 (accessed June 21, 2014)
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CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY • CENTER FOR DEMOGRAPHICS AND POLICY
37. Shuqing, Zhao, Peng Changhui, Jiang Hong, Tian Dalun, Lei Xiangdong, and Zhou Xiaolu. 2006. “Land use change in Asia
and the ecological consequences.” Ecological Research 21, no. 6: 890-896. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost
(accessed June 20, 2014).
38. Kleeman, Jenny. “Manila: A megacity where the living must share with the dead.” theguardian.com. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/15/philippines-overpopulation-crisis (accessed June 21, 2014).
39. Boseley, Sarah. “Sanitation, swift action when battling pandemics in megacities.” Taipei Times. http://www.taipeitimes.
com/News/editorials/archives/2014/03/02/2003584664/2 (accessed June 21, 2014).
40. Nangia, Vinita Dawra. “Is commute time taking over your life? - The Times of India.” The Times of India. http://timesofindia.
indiatimes.com/life-style/Is-commute-time-taking-over-your-life/articleshow/3508745.cms (accessed June 21, 2014).
41. Hallegatte, S, C Green, RJ Nicholls, and J Corfee-Morlot. n.d. “Future flood losses in major coastal cities.” Nature Climate
Change, no. 9: 802-806. Science Citation Index, EBSCOhost (accessed June 20, 2014).
42. Hall, Peter. “Urban Land, Housing, and Transportation: The Global Challenge.”Global Urban Development Magazine, November 2007. http://www.globalurban.org/GUDMag07Vol3Iss1/Hall.htm (accessed June 21, 2104).
43. Dobbs, Richard , Jaana Remes, James Manyika, Charles Roxburgh, Sven Smit, and Fabian Schaer. “Urban world: Cities
and the rise of the consuming class.” McKinsey & Company. http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/urbanization/urban_
world_cities_and_the_rise_of_the_consuming_class (accessed June 21, 2014).
44. “New York, New York, A Most Unequal Town.” Inequalityorg. http://inequality.org/york-york-unequal-town/ (accessed June
21, 2014).
45. Adomaitis, Kasparas . “The World’s Largest Cities Are The Most Unequal.” Euromonitor International. http://blog.euromonitor.com/2013/03/the-worlds-largest-cities-are-the-most-unequal.html (accessed June 21, 2014). ; Doughty, Steve.
“London is most unequal city in Western world with gap between rich and poor widest since slavery.” Mail Online. http://
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1267778/London-unequal-city-Western-world-gap-rich-poor-widest-slavery.html
(accessed June 21, 2014)..
46. Zhong, Raymond, and Saptarishi Dutta. “As Growth Slows in India, Rural Workers Have Fewer Incentives to Move to Cities.”
The Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304732804579423221004363850
(accessed June 21, 2014).
47. German, Erik, and Solana Pyne. “Dhaka: fastest growing megacity in the world.” GlobalPost. http://www.globalpost.com/
dispatch/asia/100831/bangladesh-megacities-part-one?page=0,1 (accessed June 21, 2014).
48. Khouri, Rami G.. “A bad day for four leading Arab cities.” The Daily Star Newspaper. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/
Columnist/2013/Aug-17/227591-a-bad-day-for-four-leading-arab-cities.ashx (accessed June 21, 2014). ; Telegraph
Media Group. “Iran attempts to reverse falling birth rate.” The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/
middleeast/iran/10554866/Iran-attempts-to-reverse-falling-birth-rate.html (accessed June 21, 2014).
49. Samanian, Faezeh. “Iran’s silent fertility crisis.” Asia Times Online. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-02171213.html (accessed June 21, 2014).
50. ; Shaw, Annapurna, and R.N. Sharma. “The Housing Market in Mumbai Metroplos and its Irrelevance to the Average
Citizen.” In Indian cities in transition. Chennai: Orient Longman, 2006. 284-5 .; Das, Gurcharan. “At last, good news
about poverty.” Times of India Blogs. http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/men-and-ideas/at-last-good-news-about/
(accessed June 21, 2014).
THE PROBLEM WITH MEGACITIES
25
51. Agha, Ambreen . “Pakistan: Gangsters Rule In Karachi - Analysis.” Eurasia Review. http://www.eurasiareview.
com/19082013-pakistan-gangsters-rule-in-karachi-analysis/ (accessed June 21, 2014). ; Berube , Alan. “Karachi, Pakistan as an “Instant City”.” The Brookings Institution. http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/the-avenue/
posts/2011/11/11-karachi-pakistan-berube (accessed June 21, 2014).
52. Espinosa, Julio, and Rosa Casanova. ¿Nos movemos?: la movilidad social en México.. Primera ed. México, DF: Fundación
ESRU, 2008..
53. Nijman, Jan. “Mumbai’s Mysterious Middle Class.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30, no. 4 (2006):
758-777..
54. Barta, Patrick. “The Rise of the Underground.” The Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/
SB123698646833925567 (accessed June 21, 2014).
55. Advani, Mira. Interview by author. Personal interview. California, January 1, 2014. .
56. “Megacity Slums and Urban Insecurity.” The International Relations and Security Network (ISN). http://www.isn.ethz.ch/
Digital-Library/Articles/Detail/?lng=en&id=175893 (accessed June 21, 2014).
57. Mumford, Lewis. In The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its prospects. New York: Harcourt, Brace &
World, 1961. 237.
58. Dobbs, Richard, Jaana Remes, Sven Smit, James Manyika, Charles Roxburgh, and Alejandra Restrepo. “Urban world:
Mapping the economic power of cities.” McKinsey & Company. http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/urbanization/urban_world (accessed June 21, 2014).
59. Cox, Wendell. “Dispersion in the World’s Largest Urban Areas.” Newgeography.com. http://www.newgeography.com/content/003468-dispersion-worlds-largest-urban-areas (accessed June 21, 2014).
60. Angel, Shlomo. Planet of cities. Cambridge, Mass.: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2012.
61. World Development Report: Reshaping Economic Geography. Washington, DC: The International Bank for Reconstruction
and Development / The World Bank, 2009.
62. Data from “Demographia World Urban Areas.” Demographia . http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf (accessed
June 21, 2104). ; Below 500,000 urban population estimated (scaled) from 2000 data in Angel, Shlomo. Planet of
cities. Cambridge, Mass.: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2012.
63. Automotive Mission Plan, 2006-2016: a mission for development of Indian automotive industry.. New Delhi: Ministry of
Heavy Industries & Public Enterprises, Govt. of India, 2006.
64. Dobbs, Richard, Jaana Remes, Sven Smit, James Manyika, Charles Roxburgh, and Alejandra Restrepo. “Urban world:
Mapping the economic power of cities.” McKinsey & Company. http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/urbanization/urban_world (accessed June 21, 2014)
65. Calculated from United Nations, US Census Bureau data and Demographia World Urban Areas data.
66. Based on end of 2013 municipal population estimates. Shanghai grew 3.5 percent annually from 2000 to 2010, but only
1.9 percent from 2010 to 2014. Beijing’s growth rates were 4.0 percent and 2.6 percent, respecitvely.
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CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY • CENTER FOR DEMOGRAPHICS AND POLICY
67. Mehta, Suketu. Maximum city: Bombay lost and found. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. ; Luce, Edward. In spite of the
gods: the strange rise of modern India. New York: Doubleday, 2007.; Zhong, Raymond, and Saptarishi Dutta. “As Growth
Slows in India, Rural Workers Have Fewer Incentives to Move to Cities.” The Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/
news/articles/SB10001424052702304732804579423221004363850 (accessed June 21, 2014).
68. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is reputed to have reduced rural to urban migration by 28% (between
1999 and 2008). See Ravi, Shamika, Mudit Kapoor, and Rahul Ahluwalia. “The Impact of NREGS on Urbanization in
India.” Dartmouth.edu. https://www.dartmouth.edu/~neudc2012/docs/paper_299.pdf (accessed June 21, 2014). .
69. Pradhan, Kanhu Charan, Unacknowledged Urbanisation: New Census Towns of India (September 7, 2013). Bhaumik, Sumon
Kumar, Shubhashis Gangopadhyay and Shagun Krishnan (2009): “Reforms and Entry: Some Evidence from the Indian
Manufacturing Sector”, Review of Development Economics, 13(4); Bhagat, R B (2011): “Emerging Pattern of Urbanisation in India”, Economic & Political Weekly, 46(34): 10-12. Available at SSRN:http://ssrn.com/abstract=2402116
70. “Rurbanization – Rural Urban Connection.” Sri Narendra Modis Vision for India. http://narendramodivision.com/rurbanization-rural-urban-connection/#.U4EMrfldUV0 (accessed June 21, 2014). ;
71. Zhu, Yu, Huaiyou Shao, and Kaijing He. “The Evolution of China’s in situ Urbanization and Its Planning and Environmental
Implications: Case Studies from Quanzhou Municipality.” In Urban Population-Environment Dynamics in the Developing
World: Case Studies and Lessons Learned. Paris: Committee for International Cooperation in National Research in
Demography (CICRED) , 2009. 214-245. ; Cox, Wendell. “The Evolving Urban Form: Quanzhou.” Newgeography.com.
http://www.newgeography.com/content/002551-the-evolving-urban-form-quanzhou (accessed June 21, 2014).
72. World Development Report: Reshaping Economic Geography. Washington, DC: The International Bank for Reconstruction
and Development / The World Bank, 2009, p.81.
73. Advani, Mira. Interview by author. Personal interview. California, January 1, 2014.
74. Johnson, Ian. “China’s Great Uprooting: Moving 250 Million Into Cities.” The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.
com/2013/06/16/world/asia/chinas-great-uprooting-moving-250-million-into-cities.html (accessed June 21, 2014).
THE PROBLEM WITH MEGACITIES
27
Design Notes
The Problem with MEGACITIES and the graphics utilize the following:
To achieve visual harmony a modified version of the grid Jan Tschichold conceived for his book Typographie
was employed.
MINION PRO Chapman’s serif family, is a digital typeface designed by Robert Slimbach in 1990 for Adobe
Systems. The name comes from the traditional naming system for type sizes, in which minion is between
nonpareil and brevier. It is inspired by late Renaissance-era type.
RESEARCH IN ACTION
RESEARCH IN A
BERTHOLD AKIZEDENZ GROTESK is Chapman’s san serif family. It is a grotesque typeface originally released by the
WILKINSON
COLLEGE
Berthold Type Foundry in 1896 under
the name Accidenz-Grotesk.
It was the first sans serif typeface to be
of
Humanities
and
Social
widely used and influenced many later neo-grotesque typefacesSciences
after 1950.
Page 6: Shantytown – Rio image
Copyright: <a href='http://www.123rf.com/profile_miragik'>miragik / 123RF Stock Photo</a>
Page 21: Seoul buildings
Copyright: <a href='http://www.123rf.com/profile_vincentstthomas'>vincentstthomas / 123RF Stock Photo</a>
Front and Back Cover: Shanghai at night
Copyright: <a href='http://www.123rf.com/profile_wangsong'>wangsong / 123RF Stock Photo</a>
Inside Front cover and Inside Back Cover:
Copyright: <a href='http://www.123rf.com/profile_miro3d'>miro3d / 123RF Stock Photo</a>
Book exterior and interior design by Chapman University professor Eric Chimenti. His work has won a
Advertising
inclusion into LogoLounge: Master Library, Volume 2, and been
R E S E A R C HGold
I N Award,
A CbeenTselected
I OforN
RESEARCH IN A
featured on visual.ly, the world’s largest community of infographics and data visualization. He has 17 years
WILKINSON COLLEGE
of
Humanities and Social Sciences
of experience in the communication design industry. To view a client list and see additional samples please
visit www.behance.net/ericchimenti.
Professor Chimenti is also the founder and head of Chapman’s Ideation Lab that supports undergraduate and
faculty research by providing creative visualization and presentation support, which can include creative
writing, video, photography, data visualization, and design. Appropriatly qualified Chapman University
undergraduate students staff the lab and help with the design and presentation of complex communication
problems.
RESEARCH IN ACTION
RESEARCH IN A
WILKINSON COLLEGE
of
28
Humanities and Social Sciences
CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY • CENTER FOR DEMOGRAPHICS AND POLICY
RESEARCH IN ACTION
RESEARCH IN A