As of this year, according to the United Nations, humanity has officially arrived in the city. 2007 marked the first time that more than fifty-percent of people worldwide lived in cities, with a new word, "the megacity" (a city with more than ten million people) entering our international lexicon with some 21 examples to cite from all over the world with at least six more due to join their ranks soon (see complete list).
More cities, with greater, and increasingly more cosmopolitan populations could yield tremendous benefits for humanity on the whole. As resources and opportunities, both in the government and private sector are centralized, the benefits of either may be more widespread, better, and more easily sustained from generation to generation. After all, cities have been the centers for intellectual, technological and cultural development for millennia, even as they have been historically restricted from the greater populations that they serviced. Now, with more than fifty-percent of humanity living in one, will humanity enter a new era in which the benefits of urban life and progress may be brought to the majority?
That's a big maybe. But utopian visions aside, it's important to note that first, not every city that's growing by leaps and bounds is doing so because it wants to, or more importantly, because exponential growth is in its best interest. Cities like Lagos, Nigeria, the third fastest growing megacity in the world, and Karachi, Pakistan are seeing most of their growth in the worst place possible: the slums. As cultures clash with unbelievable poverty, terrorism, crime, and other concerns once considered foreign are now anything but. Diseases, including AIDS, spread more easily in slums, as well as water born infections such as diptheria and malaria. Even as healthcare may be more centralized in the city, at least in some places, demand is quickly out pacing supply. So, is it good news for the world that three quarters of its megacities are in the developing world? Potential may outweigh the harsh realities of today, but the reverse may be true as well. These are considerations to be applied to each city, and each region individually.
So what is the future of the city, and which cities, if not the new and most quickly expanding ones in the developing world, will most affirmatively secure their place in this new and emerging era? In the West, New York, London, Chicago and a spattering of European cities are battling it out for supremacy in financial markets, with no clear victor in sight. In the East, the Japanese capital of Tokyo is on the verge of a major demographic meltdown, as members of an increasingly older population prepare to leave their jobs without the necessary replacements. Other cities, whose international centrality are new to this century, are rising quickly (Mumbai, Shanghai), but not without their own host of problems which may soon stall developmental progress (read: massive overpopulation).
Will cities around the world compete with one another for power, in the way that only nations used to in the past, or is this "new era" really nothing new at all? Will cities in Nigeria, Pakistan and elsewhere turn their respective nations around, or bring them down entirely?
With that in mind, then, perhaps only one (albeit pressing) question remains: what about Dubai?
More cities, with greater, and increasingly more cosmopolitan populations could yield tremendous benefits for humanity on the whole. As resources and opportunities, both in the government and private sector are centralized, the benefits of either may be more widespread, better, and more easily sustained from generation to generation. After all, cities have been the centers for intellectual, technological and cultural development for millennia, even as they have been historically restricted from the greater populations that they serviced. Now, with more than fifty-percent of humanity living in one, will humanity enter a new era in which the benefits of urban life and progress may be brought to the majority?
That's a big maybe. But utopian visions aside, it's important to note that first, not every city that's growing by leaps and bounds is doing so because it wants to, or more importantly, because exponential growth is in its best interest. Cities like Lagos, Nigeria, the third fastest growing megacity in the world, and Karachi, Pakistan are seeing most of their growth in the worst place possible: the slums. As cultures clash with unbelievable poverty, terrorism, crime, and other concerns once considered foreign are now anything but. Diseases, including AIDS, spread more easily in slums, as well as water born infections such as diptheria and malaria. Even as healthcare may be more centralized in the city, at least in some places, demand is quickly out pacing supply. So, is it good news for the world that three quarters of its megacities are in the developing world? Potential may outweigh the harsh realities of today, but the reverse may be true as well. These are considerations to be applied to each city, and each region individually.
So what is the future of the city, and which cities, if not the new and most quickly expanding ones in the developing world, will most affirmatively secure their place in this new and emerging era? In the West, New York, London, Chicago and a spattering of European cities are battling it out for supremacy in financial markets, with no clear victor in sight. In the East, the Japanese capital of Tokyo is on the verge of a major demographic meltdown, as members of an increasingly older population prepare to leave their jobs without the necessary replacements. Other cities, whose international centrality are new to this century, are rising quickly (Mumbai, Shanghai), but not without their own host of problems which may soon stall developmental progress (read: massive overpopulation).
Will cities around the world compete with one another for power, in the way that only nations used to in the past, or is this "new era" really nothing new at all? Will cities in Nigeria, Pakistan and elsewhere turn their respective nations around, or bring them down entirely?
With that in mind, then, perhaps only one (albeit pressing) question remains: what about Dubai?
1 comment:
in response to your last question: Dubai will sink into nothingness once Abou Dhabi becomes the next Paris and sucks all cultural and human resources of the UAE (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/category?blogid=15&cat=1196).
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