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High-Risk Mega Cities Changing
Throughout human history, a population barrier seemed to exist. Whenever a metropolitan’s population crosses a particular mark, it tends to collapse due to several problems. Knowing this fact, it’s a good idea to observe population to get a heads up on which cities to avoid.
For a very long time, the population barrier seemed to hover around the 1 million mark. In fact, it’s only during the 19th century when Beijing and London successfully crossed that barrier without collapsing. However, saying that the barrier doesn’t exist is inaccurate. It’s likely that it just moved.
These days, the 1 million mark is not remarkable anymore. China alone has more than 100 cities that are home to more than 1 million residents. Also, what the general public considers … high-risk mega cities … is continually changing.
Estimating High-Risk Mega Cities
Imagine living in Tokyo 100 years ago. From one’s perspective, it’s tough to imagine how Tokyo would look like in the present times. Just as it was then, imagining how megacities will be like in 2100 can be difficult. Thankfully, there are specially-designed computers that can help simulate the scenario to give a big boost to the imagination.
Global Cities Institute, a team of analysts based in Toronto, did a lot of number crunching. With a variety of factors, the group extrapolated a list of the possible megacities for the years 2100, 2075, 2050, 2025, and 2010.
The team came up with a list of 101 cities that are likely going to be overcrowded; with it comes a higher risk of collapsing.
Below Are The Top Three High-Risk Mega Cities:
1. Lagos, Nigeria
Lagos is already the most populated city not only in Nigeria but also in entire Africa. It’s still considered to be the fastest growing cities in the planet. Lagos has also served as one of Africa’s major financial centers, and the city’s GDP scores the highest.
Today, the city’s population growth rate is staggeringly high that no one knows the exact number of people that are living in the city.
According to some estimates, there are over 2,000 people that migrate to the city on a daily basis. Today’s estimated population in Lagos ranges from 11 to 21 million.
By 2100, analysts predict that the population will explode to 88 million.
2. Kinshasa, DRC
Kinshasa is the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It’s also the country’s largest metropolitan. The city started as a mere fishing village and then became a trading village. Nowadays, the city is home to 11 million inhabitants.
According to the Global Cities Institute’s projection, Kinshasa’s population will grow to around 83 million by 2100.
3. Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
Dar es Salaam translates to “the house of peace,” and it’s the former capital city of Tanzania. And yet, to this day, Dar es Salaam is still the largest city of Tanzania and it’s still the country’s center for pretty much everything from fashion to finance. Today, the city is considered as one of the fastest growing with 4.3 million inhabitants according to a 2012 consensus.
According to the projections, Dar es Salaam will grow 1,588% by 2100, which translates to a population of 74 million.
