Urban challenges for sustainable development

This night-time map constructed by NASA shows the increasingly urban nature of the planet.

More than half of the world’s population now live in cities.


Two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities within 50 years.

Already today a third of the world’s urban population dwell in the slums. The fate of the planet depends more and more on the future of cities.

At the eve of New Year 2007 we are facing a historic urban transition – for the first time in history the world’s urban population is exceeding the rural population.

This is a rapid transformation considering that in 1950 only one-third of the world’s population lived in cities.

The absolute majority, up to 95 per cent, of future urban growth will occur in cities in the developing world.

Although cities are centers for economic growth and culture the accelerating global urbanisation also implies huge challenges, since the regions predicted to account for the greater part of the growth are also the regions least equipped to deal with this rapid urbanization.

The growing slums
The pace of urbanization continues to accelerate. The number of cities in the world with populations exceeding one million increased from 17 in 1900 to 388 in 2000.

Most of the world’s megacities with over 10 million inhabitants are in the developing world.

An increasingly urban planet is really not in itself good or bad. The key issue is rather how this predicted growth can take place in best possible way.

How can we avoid problems such as air and water pollution, loss of farmland, and isolation from nature? How do we make urbanization more sustainable?


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