Half the world soon to be in cities by end 2008, says UN

Half of the global population will live in cities by the end of this year for the first time in human history, while the percentage of urbanised in India will only be 29 per cent, latest projections by the United Nations show.

The report predicts that the number of people living in urban areas would rise to 70 per cent by 2050.

Currently, 3.3 billion people of the estimated population of 6.7 billion are living in urban areas and the population living in urban areas will be 6.4 billion by 2050 when some 9.2 billion people are expected to inhabit the earth, the report said.

But the United Nations also says that there is nothing to worry about as urbanisation shows the dynamism of the economies and rich societies are among the most highly urbanised.

The report released yesterday said that even then India would still be not as urbanised as China where currently 40 per cent people live in cities and their number is projected to go up to 70 per cent or one billion people by 2050.

Releasing the latest projections on urbanisation, Director of Department of Economic and Social Affairs' Population Division Hania Zlotnik stressed that the migration to urban areas would continue in India despite attempts by the Indian planners to prevent people from moving to cities.

Indian planners, she said, should be trying to foster economic dynamism in rural areas where 70 per cent of the population lives and rural development implies improving agriculture and establishment of agro industries.

That would mean fewer people would be needed in that sector which, in turn, would require excess labour to be moved to non farm employment which is available mostly in cities.

Zlotnik outlined two scenarios: either people would migrate to cities such as Mumbai, or one-time rural areas would transition into urban centres by generating other activities.

That process had been seen in China, and would need to happen in India. Moreover, if those areas became more dynamic, people would earn more, become more educated, and demand better services, as had been the case in Europe, the United States and Latin America, she added.

Zlotnik said the greatest expansion could happen not in metropolises but in cities which have population less than 500,000 and even some of the rural area graduate into urban area.

In India, she said, two new megacities "" Kolkata and Chennai "" which are projected to have populations of 26.6 million and 10.1 million respectively would join Mumbai and Delhi by 2025.

Mumbai had a population of 19 million and Delhi 18.8 million last year.

Worldwide, the UN expects addition of eight new megacities with population of 10 million or more by 2025. These would include Shenzhen in China which will become the third megacity in the country after Beijing and Shanghai with a population of 10.2 million.

However, Tokyo will remain largest megacity. Its population of 35.7 million at the last count is expected to rise to 36.4 million by 2025.

Of the current 19 megacities, Europe has only two Moscow and Istanbul and Paris is expected to join them. Africa has only one megacity "" Cairo in Egypt "" and UN projects that Kinshasa in Democratic Republic of Congo and Lagos in Nigeria would earn the coveted title by 2025.

The report reflects the most recent estimates of the world's urban and rural populations, projected, for the first time, to 2050, rather than 2030, as in past Revisions.

It indicates that most of the population growth expected in urban areas will be concentrated in the cities and towns of the world's less developed regions, particularly Africa and Asia.

If Asia continued to urbanise at its current rapid pace, the region was expected to become 50 per cent urban by 2025, with the number of urban dwellers expected to jump from 1.6 billion people today to 1.8 billion people by 2050.

Such "sobering" numbers depend on the decline of fertility rates for the world as a whole, and particularly in Africa and Asia, she continued. Should they remain constant, those regions would likely gain another 1.8 billion urban dwellers.

Thus, fertility must drop in countries with relatively high rates for urban and rural growth to remain manageable.

China today is about 40 per cent urban, with more than 500 million people in its cities, and is expected to be 70 per cent urban by 2050, with a city population of over 1 billion.

In comparison, India is expected to urbanise more slowly, and therefore remain the country with the largest rural population in the coming decades.

India is about 30 per cent urban - its city inhabitants numbering 300 million - and likely to reach 55 per cent urban by 2050, with more than 900 million people living in its cities.