Before we end this first week of class regarding population trends in the world, I would like to share with you two other very important topics here, and both of them have to do with cities. One of the biggest changes that we see in the world is that of the growth of cities. Urbanization is the name of that process. We can see here on the chart that since the year 1950 more and more people have become residents of cities in the world. It has been going on the richest countries which we see at the top and also in the poorest counties in the world which is the dotted line at the bottom. And the projection into the future by the United Nations is that these trends will continue for the next few decades. Now look at this map, back in the year 1960, there were only two cities in the world with more than ten million people, that was New York and Tokyo. And then there were maybe about 20 or 25 cities between one and five million. And maybe 15 cities or so between 5 and 10 million. That was a long time ago, in the year 1960. Let's now go to the year 1970, and we see that now, at that point, there is a third city with more than 10 million people, that's Osaka in Japan and there's quite a bit of urban growth in other parts of the world including East Asia, South Asia, Latin America and Europe. Now, this map here tells us the situation as of two or three years ago, in the year 2014. And we see that now China, India, parts of the Middle East, parts of Africa and America, some in the United States and Europe have more cities. And now I want to show you what is the medium projection by the United Nations as to how many cities we're going to have in the world above the size of one million population, or above 5 million and 10 million. That is the medium projection of urban growth in the world to the year 2030. By that year we're going to have 49 cities in the world with more than 10 million people, half of them are going to have more than 20 million people. They're called mega cities. And all together we're going to have about 500 cities in the world with more than one million people. Look at India, you can't even see India on the map, because there's going to be so many big cities there. This is Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, a metropolitan area that has grown from one million in 1955 To 7 million, nowadays, mirroring the growth of this country as a dynamic emerging market. This is Santiago, the capital of Chile. Santiago has grown quickly since the 1950s. It's not too big, about 6 million. But its location in a narrow valley next to the Andes mountains makes it very difficult for smog to dissipate. As a result, during the winter months pollution far exceeds recommended levels. I'm in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is one of the very few global cities in the world. It's a center for commerce, it's also a center for finance. It has one of the top eight stock market in the world. I am in Macao today, Macao is a former Portuguese colony, the Portuguese arrived here 500 years ago. Macao today is very different from Hong Kong, and I wouldn't say that Macao is a global city. It is much smaller than Hong Kong and it's also a city mostly driven by tourism and casino gambling. This is Beijing, a city that has become one of the largest in the world over the last 20 years. The process of urbanization of growth of cities is nowhere more readily apparent than in China. In 1980, no Chinese city had more than ten million inhabitants. Now think about the economic implications, of a growth of cities in the world. What does in mean for consumer markets? Well, it means that, for instance, there's going to be more demand for leisure and entertainment because people who move to the cities, they purchase more services from those two industries. Also think about food and water. You see, when people live in a small village, they consume food and water that is locally available. But, if people are born in a city or they move from the small village to the city they need somebody to give them the food and the water. That's why a lot of investors these days are saying that in the future, it's going to be very profitable to invest in food and water. Not because we're going to have a lot of mouths to feed in the world. But rather, because most of those people are going to be living in cities. And they will starve or they will go thirsty unless we give them the food and the water. But think also about the problems that all of these trends are going to be producing, congestion, pollution, what are we going to do with all of the waste produced by these cities? Think about the following. When people are driving their car downtown here in the United States, did you know that about 20% of the time they're looking for a parking space? These are the kinds of problems, these are also the kinds of opportunities, that this rapid urban growth is going to be producing in the world. But remember this, at the present time every week that passes there's an additional 1.5 million people in the world living in cities. Every week that passes. That is the speed at which cities are growing in the world, nowadays.
