The world’s cities are growing far faster than its population. Indeed, aside from the growth of population itself, urbanisation is the dominant demographic trend of the half-century now ending. In 1950, 750 million of the world’s people lived in cities. By 1996, this had at least tripled, to more than 2.6 billion. The number projected to live in cities by 2050, some 6.5 billion people, exceeds world population today. Urbanisation on anything like the scale that we know today is historically quite recent. In 1800, only one city, London, had a million people. Today, 326 cities have at least that many people. And there are 14 mega cities, those with 10 million or more residents. Tokyo is the largest, at 27 million. Mexico city is second, at 17 million. New York city and Sao Paulo are close behind, with 16 million each. Rounding out the list in descending size are Bombay(15 million), Shanghai (14), Los Angeles (12), Calcutta (12), Buenos Aires (12), Beijing (11), Osaka (11), Lagos (10), Rio de Janeiro (10) and Delhi (10). The rate of growth of cities in industrial countries during the first century or so of the industrial revolution was relatively slow. Today’s cities are growing much faster. It took London 130 years to get from 1 million to 8 million. Mexico city made this jump in just 30 years.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR M. Lakshmi Narasaiah
Dr. M. Lakshmi Narasaiah, has been working as Professor and Head, Department of Economics, Sri Krishnadevaraya University Post-Graduate Centre, Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh. He is a Post-Graduate in Economics and has secured first rank. He has received Ph.D., Degree from Sri Krishnadevaraya University, Anantapur, in 1987. He has worked as UGC JRF and UGC SRF. Starting his professional career as an Assistant Professor of Economics in Sri Krishnadevaraya University, Anantapur, he has been actively engaged in teaching and research for the past twenty years. He was associated with the Government of Andhra Pradesh. Planning Department in the center for planning and Development studies projects. He has extensively travelled abroad. He has to his credit 175 research papers published in reputed National and International Journals, a large number of book reviews and seminar papers besides supervising M.Phil., and Ph.D., studies. He is also working on number of research projects. He has frequently participated in national and international conference. He is author of 27 books. Prof. M. Lakshmi Narasaiah is a member of large number of national and international associations and is associated with academic in several universities and professional organization. He has been acting as a member of the "Review Committee" he various international economic journals.
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