Sun, 18 Dec 2022 11:59:29 +1100
Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>
<https://theconversation.com/the-era-of-the-megalopolis-how-the-worlds-cities-are-merging-193424>
"On November 15 2022, a baby girl named Vinice Mabansag, born at Dr Jose
Fabella Memorial Hospital in Manila, Philippines, became – symbolically – the
eight billionth person in the world. Of those 8 billion people, 60% live in a
town or city. By the end of the 21st century, cities will account for 85% of
Earth’s predicted 10 billion inhabitants.
Cities don’t only grow by the number of inhabitants. The more people they host,
the more services (public transport, energy infrastructure, water supply) they
need, the more governance they require and the more resilient their economy has
to be. It might be surprising then to learn that there is no single definition
of what a city actually is.
In medieval times, cities from London to Seoul were delineated by their walls.
And even well into the 20th century, the idea of a city’s limits still held
water. Today, if the process of urbanisation still brings to mind the biggest
pre-millennial metropolises (Tokyo, São Paulo, New York or Mumbai), they
represent nonetheless a decreasing proportion of all the world’s cities.
By contrast, in the more rapidly growing urban centres, such as Lagos, the
geographic extent of a mayor’s official jurisdiction often ends long before the
populace it serves does. Its economy, meanwhile, is often deeply intertwined
with those of the neighbouring cities.
The question of where to draw the line between what is and what is not a city –
not to mention where one ends and another begins – is getting harder to answer.
As the world moves towards total urbanisation, settlements are spreading out by
merging into one another to create what urban experts term “megalopolises”."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
"On November 15 2022, a baby girl named Vinice Mabansag, born at Dr Jose
Fabella Memorial Hospital in Manila, Philippines, became – symbolically – the
eight billionth person in the world. Of those 8 billion people, 60% live in a
town or city. By the end of the 21st century, cities will account for 85% of
Earth’s predicted 10 billion inhabitants.
Cities don’t only grow by the number of inhabitants. The more people they host,
the more services (public transport, energy infrastructure, water supply) they
need, the more governance they require and the more resilient their economy has
to be. It might be surprising then to learn that there is no single definition
of what a city actually is.
In medieval times, cities from London to Seoul were delineated by their walls.
And even well into the 20th century, the idea of a city’s limits still held
water. Today, if the process of urbanisation still brings to mind the biggest
pre-millennial metropolises (Tokyo, São Paulo, New York or Mumbai), they
represent nonetheless a decreasing proportion of all the world’s cities.
By contrast, in the more rapidly growing urban centres, such as Lagos, the
geographic extent of a mayor’s official jurisdiction often ends long before the
populace it serves does. Its economy, meanwhile, is often deeply intertwined
with those of the neighbouring cities.
The question of where to draw the line between what is and what is not a city –
not to mention where one ends and another begins – is getting harder to answer.
As the world moves towards total urbanisation, settlements are spreading out by
merging into one another to create what urban experts term “megalopolises”."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
