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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Hopkins Report: Cities Will Determine Living Standards for MankindWithin five years half the world's population will live in urban areas, placing cities—especially those in developing countries—at the forefront in determining the kind of world that lies ahead, according to a new report from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Released ahead of this week's UN General Assembly special session which will review progress of the Istanbul 1996 Habitat II agenda setting out "approaches and strategies towards the achievement of sustainable development of the world's urban areas," the 4-page Population Reports issue is a preview of a longer report to be published next year. Noting that almost all population growth will take place in the cities of developing countries, the report, published by the Johns Hopkins Population Information Program, points out that, after Tokyo, developing country cities Bombay, Lagos, Dhaka, and São Paulo will head the list of "megacities" in 2015. Each will have over 20 million people. These cities, in addition to Karachi, Mexico City, and Shanghai, will be larger than New York with 17.4 million and Los Angeles with an estimated 14.1 million. Fifteen years later, by 2030, some 60% of the world's population will live in cities. In many cities the rapid growth has overwhelmed the capacity of municipal authorities to respond. "Over 600 million people in cities of developing countries cannot meet their basic needs for shelter, water, food, health, and education," according to the report. Why are cities in developing countries growing so quickly? Between 1960 and 1990, excluding China, an estimated 60% of city growth came from births (minus deaths) in the urban population, and some 40% came from migration into cities from rural areas and from the expansion of urban boundaries. Cities in developed and developing countries have a huge impact on the natural environment. Cities generate close to 80% of all carbon dioxide and account for 75% of industrial wood use. Some 60% of freshwater withdrawn for human use ends up in urban areas—either directly for use in factories, for drinking and sanitation, or indirectly through the consumption of irrigated crops. Alarmed by massive population growth, worsening health, living, and environmental conditions, some experts worry that cities in developing countries have become unmanageable. Others are more optimistic, observing that with good management cities can grow even larger without making residents worse off and without ruining the surrounding environment, according to the report. Authors Don Hinrichsen, Richard Blackburn, and Bryant Robey point out that meeting the family planning needs of city residents is a promising strategy not only for improving health but also for slowing population growth to buy time for other sustainable, environmentally-friendly policies to take effect. Such policies include better urban planning, more public transportation, better sanitation and rational water use policies, energy conservation, urban farming, and waste recycling. Don Hinrichsen is a senior consultant with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA); Richard Blackburn is a Senior Research Analyst for Population Reports; Bryant Robey is Editor of Population Reports. Population Reports is an international review journal of important issues in population, family planning, and related matters. It is published four times a year in four languages by the Population Information Program at the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs for more than 170,000 family planning and other health professionals worldwide, with support from the US Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID administers the US foreign assistance program, providing economic and humanitarian assistance in more than 80 countries worldwide. For more information contact: Stephen Goldstein or Kim Martin at Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, 111 Market Place, Suite 310, Baltimore, Maryland 21202, USA. Tel: 410 659-6300; Fax: 410 659-6266 e-mail: press@jhuccp.org. |
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