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Slums Are Home to Almost One Billion People

by Iva Skoch (RSS feed) on Aug 31st 2007 at 9:30AM

I spent some time in London this week. The city has a special place in my heart and that's not only because the Tate Modern gallery is located there. Although it's a big part of it. This power-plant-turned museum can--perhaps like no other modern art museum--truly catch the Zeitgeist.

Fortunately, I was able to catch the very last day of the Global Cities exhibit; a fascinating expose of the changing faces of ten global cities: Cairo, Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Mumbai, Sao Paolo, Shanghai and Tokyo. It explores how each of them deal with its size, diversity, density, form and speed of growth.

Interesting stats:

In 2007, for the first time in history, one out of every two people in the world will be living in a city
One of of three city dwellers (almost one billion) currently live in slums
Cities produce 75 percent of the world's carbon emissions
London is the world's 360th fastest growing city, adding only 2.3 residents an hour
Shanghai is the 8th fastest growing city in the world, adding 29.4 new residents each hour
66 percent of the population of Sao Paolo is under 20 years old
Cairo's residential density is 36,500/km2, nine times more than London's
Tokyo is the largest urban region in the world with 34 millions people, 80% of which use public transportation daily (comparing with 10% of LA residents)