Where is urban growth and decline

Selective urban growth is expected to continue and will happen even in countries where there will be overall population decline. It seems that bright lights are irresistible. Where growth does occur, it seems unlikely that the character of urban places will alter quickly or significantly. This is partly because of enduring place legacies discussed last week and partly because the growth will be so slow.

Current plans and policies will guide development along well-established lines for the next two or even three decades. Changes to built environments will be piecemeal and incremental, the result of individual projects.

Their cumulative effects may, in due course, be considerable, but there is currently scant evidence that future places will hold any great surprises. In city centres there will probably be more densification with more tall apartments and bike lanes. At the urban fringes, there will be more place branded, master-planned suburban developments — especially around satellite cities. Unless something remarkable happens, personal motor vehicles of some sort will continue to be the preferred form of transport.

Changes to built environments in the developed world will be piecemeal and incremental, the result of individual projects. The greatest changes will be social and demographic. Populations will age considerably, with fewer workers supporting more retirees, fewer child-care centres, and more long-term facilities.

Places will become more racially and culturally diverse, reinforcing the hybrid identities of urban neighbourhoods that have already developed in many world cities. Immigrants from less developed parts of the world will continue to make up for shortfalls in natural population increases. Social diversity has significant political and social consequences.

In the U. Over the same timeframe, the population of every other racial group will increase. Except for China however few new cities are planned. Cities experiencing very high or negative population growth rates betwen and Urban sprawl, the concept of the single family house on an individual plot of land serviced by private car transport combined with accessible shopping centres remains high on the agenda. The implication is that the cities grow in terms of area.

In fact many of the new cities being planned in China are being specifically designed and developed with these very models in mind. The global urban population is currently growing by nearly 60 million people every year, indeed, every second person now lives in a city with the global population now above six billion. Only four of the world's largest 25 cities, however, are situated in the rich countries. A century ago only two out of ten people lived in urban areas. The total population of the world was then around two billion people.

Perhaps as much as a third of these people will live in slums or so-called 'informal settlements'. High growth is expected for half the urban areas in the developing world during the coming twenty years. That means that their population will double in 17 years.

The region is starting to age rapidly, a trend that is especially pronounced in urban areas. Conflict and climate-driven migration as well as cross-border movement driven by search for economic opportunity are unique considerations in the region and have been overriding some secular urbanization trends in a subset of countries. Aging is not yet an issue in MENA but is set to rapidly increase over the coming decades.

Africa is the fastest growing and youngest region in the world. There is great diversity of demographic trends among African countries and regions. The region has the highest urban growth rates in the world, but a relatively low share of population living in urban areas.

As life expectancy increases, between and , Africa will have the fastest increase in the world in the number of elderly persons. The region has disproportionately fewer women, especially at birth, compared with the global average, which could have long-term implications when it comes to labor market participation, for instance.

Despite the common perception, urban population growth is mainly driven by natural growth and in-situ reclassification rather than rural-to-urban migration. The region also has the largest regional population of elderly but there is an enormous diversity of aging-levels within the region, which are correlated with national income levels. Migration likely has a significant role in driving urbanization levels in EAP. Full Report: Demographic Trends and Urbanization.