MEGA CITIES OF

THE WORLD
HS3012- Urbanisation & Development

More of the world's population is now concentrated

in cities than ever before. This is a glimpse on
seven of the most spectacularmega cities around the
world managing the growth.

Deekshitha (HS20H055)
GROUP MEMBERS Arun Teja (CE20B033)
Sumanth Reddy (CE20B088)
TOKYO, JAPAN
Earth's Model Mega City
Tokyo is the most successful metropolis in the history of the world
has 39 million residents 50% more people than any other urban
area. It is the safest big city on the planet and with the two trillion-
dollar GDP. Its economy is larger than all but eight entire
countries.
 Struggles City Faced

1) 561 years ago, Unfortunately the buildings of the expanding

City were made of wood and paper - a dangerous combination to
confront the warm winds of summer. A priest made the deadly
mistake of burning an unlucky kimono the fire flared up ignited
his temple and engulfed 70% of the city. 100,000 people lost their
lives.
2) Despite the disaster; By the middle of the 19th century, city’s
population was in the millions. A new government led by a young
Emperor was formed and Japan opened up to foreign trade and
influence with Tokyo driving the industrial revolution that was
modernizing the country but rapid development at a cost a strained
natural environment forests were: raised pollutants choked the air
and Tokyo's once pristine waterways grew increasingly toxic.
3) Japan's sprawling foothills today a century of conservation has
resulted in parks covering 20% of the land in the Tokyo
metropolitan area but while the danger from pollution has been
largely overcome.
4) Earthquakes in 1923 an 8.0 magnitude quake rocked Tokyo
devastating the geologically unstable eastern Ward's of the city as
fire storms engulfed whole neighbourhoods.
5) Just 22 years later in 1944 Tokyo was hit again. This time
from above by Allied air forces who waged a relentless nine-
month campaign that lasted until Japan's surrender to end World
War two following America's detonation of two atomic weapons
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
 Tokyo's Vision, Planning and
Implementation
1) Japan didn't have access to the oil reserves and the automobile
focused transport system required. So the government wisely
invested heavily in rail projects to connect central Tokyo with
surrounding towns and cities in October 1964 just in time for
Tokyo to host the Summer Olympics.
2) Japan debuted the world's first modern high-speed rail line to
Osaka the Tokaido Shinkansen with trains reaching speeds of 256
kilometres per hour. Today Tokyo's urban rail network serves a
world-leading 40 million passengers a day.
3) A great parking system: Tokyo has innovative ways of storing
the cars that it does have and it's bikes.
4) Congestion has also been eased by an 11 billion dollar mega
project- The Tokyo Bay aqua linehas turned a 90 minute drive into
a 15 minutes sprint through it. The project took 30 years to design
and complete because it has to withstand the ever-present danger
of earthquakes.
5) People have easy access to the Shops/ markets (including
world class malls) that provide daily life essentials.
6) Japan runs on seafood. Along Tokyo's Harbour, lies Tsukiji
the largest fish market on earth. Every day more than 50,000
people come to buy and sell 400 different types of seafood.
7) Tokyo is home to the most non state-owned fortune 500
companies.
8) Along with New York and London is considered one of three
command centres for the global economy.
 Tokyo's Vision, Planning and
Implementation
9) The government is heavily encouraging volunteerism for people
to lead in helpfulness.
10) Ease of local public transportation and cleanliness of streets
amid the turmoil following the March 2011 earthquake visitors
priced Tokyoites for their orderliness.
11) While extending its life of 200 years installing more solar heat
blocking pavement that's up to 8 degrees celsius cooler than
asphalt helps off Tokyo's heat island problem- a challenge faced
by many other cities around the world.
12) Massive underground chambers and tunnels have been
installed to regulate and divert waters for rivers, channels and
sewers that have traditionally overflowed.
Future Plans/ Developments
1) Developing robots to serve the mankind.
2) Plan to start a hydrogen powered transportation system.
3) Build a network of fuel cell vehicles which can double as
mobile electricity generators could be a game-changer in an
emergency. Just two of these buses can power an entire
hospital for a day.
4) Other transportation upgrades include the 3-ring
expressway.
5) With so much historical damage from fire, officials are
pushing to replace old wooden houses with fireproof ones
creating entire zones where residents wouldn't have to
evacuate during a nearby blaze and ensuring that major
routes are lined with fire and earthquake proof buildings. So
emergency vehicles can move freely.

Tokyo isn't perfect by using its resources wisely

planning for the future and sharing what it
learns with the rest of the world, but it is
definitely a model for cities of all sizes
everywhere.
SOUTH PAULO, BRAZIL
Largest Metropolis in the
Southern Hemisphere
Brazil South Paulo- the largest metropolis in the southern
hemisphere is the true economic engine of the world's sixth most
populous country.
 South Paulo- The Rise

1) In 1554, Catholic missionaries with the help of indigenous

workers built a small village perched 750 metres above sea level
and 70 kilometres from the Atlantic coast. It was the only inland
settlement in the country.
2) A jumping-off point for expeditions of conquerors slave
traders and gold hunters in the 1800s, Brazil became the world's
leading coffee producer but the farmers in Rio over cultivated their
soil giving Sao Paolo an opening to become the country's
agricultural hub.

3) As one of the few inland towns, it was closer than Rio to the
plantations spread throughout the interior and it was directly
linked by rail to the Port of Santos making it the ideal Junction for
shipments of goods on their way to the coast.
4) For in 1888, Brazil's businesses adapted to another significant
change when emperor Dom Pedro ii (regarded by many as the
greatest Brazilian to ever live) convinced his people to abolish
slavery with their captive labour force.
5) Suddenly free farmers and industrialists turned to immigrants
from abroad today as a result Sal Paulo has the largest population
of Italian descendants of any city on the planet including Rome.
 Problems faced by South Paulo

1) The city's only major bodies of water are the Chetta and
Pinheiro. As the population grew, the government plagued by
inefficiency and corruption struggled to meet demand for basic
infrastructure without enough wastewater treatment plants, sewage
from millions of people flowed directly into the rivers.
2) Toxic waste from industrial facilities was dumped without
limit when new highways were built.
3) The second major challenge is that 10% of Palestine owes live
in high-density makeshift neighbourhoods called favelas while the
buildings are typically low quality.
4) The best jobs are where the transportation network is
concentrated in the city centre and since that's also the most
expensive place to live lower income people are pushed farther
and farther out and have to spend more money, energy and time
getting around.
5) With parks transportation hubs and jobs like much of the
world, Brazil has a growing gap between its wealthiest citizens
and everyone else. The top 1% of Sao Paulo city residents owns
45% of the property.
6) Third major problem is the citywide traffic jams that steal tens
of millions of productive minutes every day.
7) Four years ago, the region suffered the worst drought in its
recorded history.
Developments so far
1) Government built apartments for affordable monthly
payments of less than $100. It's a win-win ownership helps
people become more financially stable while incentivizing
them to maintain these spaces.
2) The rivers used to be gathering points for recreation.
These distant memories that are motivating current
rehabilitation efforts which include projects to treat 100% of
all waste water before it enters the jetty putting an end to all
illegal dumping and teaching people how to care for their
rivers and streams.
3) The city’s master plan addresses the gap between rich
and poor by mandating that private property owners who
underutilized valuable City space need to either meet
scheduled deadlines for putting that space to better use or
pay a progressively costly urban property tax.
4) The city now has the world's largest helicopter fleet - the
ability of the wealthy and powerful to avoid their city's
problems by literally flying over them.

The fundamental lesson of the 21st century to

survive and thrive our cities must embrace the
most sustainable methods of development.
CAIRO, EGYPT
Megacity of the Middle East
The Sahara is home to the world's largest desert city for centuries.
This place has thrived alongside the world's longest river. Cairo,
Egypt the mega city of the Middle East born in the east bank of the
Nile five thousand years ago Cairo dates back to the time of the
first Egyptian pharaohs and iconic pyramids of the
ancient city of Memphis. A megalopolis with a population of 20
million people.
 Struggles City Faced

1) Plagues like the Black Death began killing large portions of its
population.
2) Its spice trade monopoly was broken when Vasco da Gama
sailed from Portugal to India establishing an alternative sea route
undermining Cairo's economic importance.
3) Cairo entered its most rapid period of expansion in the 1950s
triggered by Colonel Nasser's revolution that ended two thousand
years of imperial rule in Egypt. That's when the city began
sprawling northward into the Fertile Nile River Delta consuming
valuable farmland this growth was fuelled by improvements in
transportation and industrialisation.
4) Cairo's development eventually reached a point of critical mass
where it suddenly became an attractive enough destination that
people began arriving faster and faster and in larger and larger
numbers. But unfortunately for Cairo it was unprepared for this
influx and couldn't grow fast enough to support them.
5) Ground developers frequently ignore or bribe their way past
rules that limit buildings to a height of 6 storeys because of the
oversaturated Nile River.
Cairo's chance to develop
1) Cairo and Egyptian housing minister Mustafa madbull II
recently unveiled a 40 billion dollar mega plan to build an
entirely new capital east of the city. He argues the project is
needed to ease congestion and overcrowding in Cairo.
2) Egyptians to turn to Chinese companies the poor and needy
millions of Egyptians who are unemployed and the
government wants to spend billions of dollars on others.
3) Cairo's leaders feel that solutions exist to manage its growth
as long as smart ideas prevail and Egypt's precious resources
be they land water or money are used in the most efficient
way.

We have to look at mega cities as a place where

human beings are going to be efficiently
contribute something to mankind
MEXICO CITY, NEW YORK
Largest Metropolis in America
It is the world's largest city at an elevation higher than 2000 meters
with 20 1.2 million residents.
It rivals New York City for the title of largest metropolis in the
Americas and it is one of the world's oldest continuously
populated urban areas.
 Struggles and Reactions

1) It is the largest city on earth without direct access to a

significant body of water.
2) The country has seen its murder rate rise as drug cartels battle
for territory. The federal district has some of the lowest crime rates
in Mexico it has installed more than 22,000 surveillance cameras
throughout its 16 boroughs and put thousands more police.
officers on the street increased security keeps violent crime in
check and creates opportunities for educated and artistically
inclined young people from the surrounding states.
3) Mexico City is the most congested place in the world.
4) Although it has an excellent 12 line metro system; it's five
million cars snar all the roadways on the streets above which
brings us back to the water crisis.
5) A gigantic concrete slab situated at the bottom of a valley
surrounded by mountains that block in its pollution. It's a heat sink
that speeds up evaporation while preventing rainwater from
entering the water table below.

Something to Note:
It's a young vibrant place with an economy that
accounts for one quarter of the country's GDP while holding more
than one-fifth of its population.

Mexico city's water system explains what a

severe drought could mean.
NEW AMSTERDAM
A port city
Dutch sent 30 families to build a settlement called New
Amsterdam in exchange for some metal. Native Americans who
hunted throughout the area gave the Dutch the island. Slaves were
immediately brought in to begin building the town. The town's
population reached 700 in 1664 but it still wasn't receiving very
much support from the crown back in Holland.
So English king Charles ii swooped in and with four
warships captured the town. He then gave the colony to his brother
the Duke of York and they called it New York !
 New York- the growth, problems and ideas

1) In 1776 New York joined the other American colonies and

declared independence from the English after getting kicked out of
Boston the British responded by sending an entire fleet of redcoats
to seize and occupy New York which they held for seven years
until George Washington led his victorious rebel army back into
the city.
2) After the war New York briefly served as the capital of the
newly formed United States.
3) Soon after the New York Stock Exchange was established, it
laid the groundwork for lower Manhattan to become the
financial capital of the world.
4) A grid pattern of streets was laid out providing an organised
plan of expansion to the north and the opening of the Erie Canal in
1825.
5) This increased New York's importance as an export center of
Goods agricultural products and raw materials that could now be
easily transported from the resource-rich Great Lakes region.
6) New York's population quadrupled many of these newcomers
had to settle in tenement houses without proper sanitation or
clean water diseases like cholera typhoid and smallpox became
rampant.
7) The construction of the Croton Aqueduct one of the world's first
great modern water distribution systems helped to solve
this problem and hygiene began to immediately improve in order
to preserve the fast-growing city's connection to the environment.
 New York- the growth, problems and ideas

8) A six hundred acre area of swampland and squatter shacks was

set aside for preservation and eventually transformed into Central
Park today. It's the most visited urban park in the country.
9) The Civil War began in 1861 after Abraham Lincoln was
elected president a riot broke out as angry white mobs attacked
blacks with a blamed for low wages and the war hundreds were
killed.
10) Despite the unrest the city's economic engine roared as it
became the vital source of financing and supplies.
11) The Brooklyn Bridge was completed linking New York to the
third largest city in the country.
12) Electricity made the city the center of nightlife in the Roaring
Twenties.
13) New York still lives with the traumatic memory of its worst
day September 11 2001 when more than 2,500 civilians and first
responders died in the tragic attack on the World Trade Center.
One and only threat
There is no bigger threat to New York City than rising seas
that storm (caused nearly twenty billion dollars in damages).

New York City represents the best of our

modern world. It's dynamic creative and
socially tolerant. Its embrace of sustainability
proves that capitalism and environmentalism
are not incompatible and it's people which
speak 400 different languages and are 37%
foreign-born prove that even in one of the most
densely populated urban centers on the planet
if conditions are good there's plenty of room for
everyone to get along.
DHAKA, Bangladesh
Rikshaw capital of the world
Everest and the Himalayas - it may not
seem like this mountain range could
shape a mega city almost 600 kilometres
away; but it does.
This place- the capital of the most d
ensely populated major country in the
world is also the fastest-growing city
on the planet. This is Dhaka, Bangladesh
 A brief rich History

1) In the 17th century it was one of the wealthiest and most

prosperous cities on the planet.
2) The British took control in 1765 when they were forced out in
the middle of the 20th century - the city became the capital of
eastern Pakistan.
3) Bangladesh finally won its independence in 1971 but only after
suffering heavy damage during many battles one of the legacies of
two and a half centuries of power struggle.

Dhaka, its resources and problems

1) The constant supply of melting snow and water that flows down
the Himalayas to the south creates the largest Delta in the world
much of it runs through Bangladesh, an agricultural paradise with
some of the richest soil on the planet but all that water is also a
curse with more than 700 rivers flowing into the Bay of Bengal.
2) Country's 64 districts experience regular flooding. If even a
little of land is overtaken by water, many of its people instantly
become homeless to top off that; when fields and villages flood
these already struggling micro economies become even less
sustainable.
3) People pour into the capital because that's where the jobs are
more than 2 million. So many unskilled people find work in the
off-the-books economy. There's a reason why this is known as the
rickshaw capital of the world.
 Dhaka, its resources and problems

4) Political system is not functioning properly especially at the

national level.
5) Dhaka's police force carries out extrajudicial killings and the
government tolerates and even encourages attacks on journalists
academics and minority groups who try to expose mistreatment
and corruption and the city has experienced an uptick in terrorism
and there's evidence some of its militant networks may be turning
to the extremely violent tactics of the Islamic state.
6) As any other underdeveloped megacities, the most
pressing need Dhaka citizens face is daily access to clean water.
7) Many people live in slums with limited water and limited
money to buy it. This leaves the entire city teeming with
mosquitoes.
8) Climate change threatens to make their situation much worse by
2040. It will be 2 degrees Celsius warmer the glaciers and
snowpack in the Himalayas will melt faster and rivers flowing
from the mountains in the north will meet wider.

Dhaka and Bangladesh as a whole should

prioritize in its quest to manage one of the most
challenging situations any civilization has ever
faced.
PARIS, FRANCE
The city of Light
One mega city always seems to be at the forefront of progressive
movements whether it's innovation in its cuisine Couture,
infrastructure or governance.
This is a refuge for the rebel, artist, philosopher and scientist has
always held a place in the hearts of romantics and vanguards alike
because here in the City of Light, engineers and artists often share
a line of sight.
 Paris and its beauty

1) Paris saw rulers, religions, Wars and plagues come and go.
2) It became the largest city in Europe home to one of the first
universities and the birthplace of Gothic architecture.
3) In the middle of the 1800s Paris had well over a million people
but was made up of tight streets and overpopulated.
4) Napoleon's nephew who had become Emperor himself set out
to make the city healthier less congested and grander. He turned to
a clever man full of audacity and skill the visionary urban planner
Baron Haussmann.
5) Since ancient Rome, tens of thousands of workers were hired
to carry out their plans which included completely rebuilding the
sewer system and installing hundreds of kilometres of pipes inside
of it to distribute gas for thousands of new streetlights to brand
new rail stations connecting Paris to the rest of France and more
than 20 parts to ensure that none was more than a 10 minutes walk
away from anyone.
6) Throughout the 30 year undertaking hundreds of thousands of
people were displaced in phases as the entire city became a
construction zone.
7) The patience of the residents is well worth as it is clearly
evident from what Paris is now in front of the world.
8) Paris home are well supported by world-class infrastructure as it
prepares to host the 2024 Summer Olympics.
9) Paris is aiming to complete two mega projects building 12 more
towers.
The improvements in Paris will keep the city
thriving for decades and ensure that the next
generation of Parisians are positioned to lead
on the challenges of the second half of the
century.