1. QOTD - Megacities Top Ten Largest Cities (PRB 2013)
Tokyo 37.2 million
New Delhi 22.6
Mexico City 20.4
New York City 20.3
Shanghai 20.2
Sao Paulo 19.2
Mumbai 19.7
Beijing 15.6
Dhaka 15.4
Kolkata 14.4
1990 – 10 megacities
2014 – 28 megacities

2. Megacities
Megacity – any metropolitan area with over 10 million inhabitants
Metropolitan area – large concentration of population, usually an area of 100K or more, with an important city at its core plus suburban and exurban areas that surround the city and are socially and economically integrated with it.
Most megacities are in South Asia and East Asia
54% of global population lives in cities, estimates at 66% by 2050

3. Megacities
Urban Challenges: meeting the needs of housing, infrastructure, transportation, energy, employment, education, health care; preventing slums/squatter settlements
Rural populations expected to decrease as urban populations continue to grow. The global rural population is now close to 3.4 billion and will decline to 3.1 billion by (Remember “rural resentment”)?
Africa and Asia are urbanizing rapidly, but the regions are still home to nearly 90% of the world’s rural population. India has the largest rural population with 857 million, followed by China with 635 million.

4. Site and Situation Factors
Site – absolute location
Situation – relative location; after European exploration and colonization, many dominant interior cities declined and coastal cities became more prominent. Examples: Samarkand, Uzbekistan located on the Silk Road and Timbuktu, Mali located along a key Trans-Saharan trade route