megacity

Growth: From Microorganisms to Megacities

by Vaclav Smil  · 23 Sep 2019

(new edition) Energy: A Beginner’s Guide (new edition) Energy and Civilization: A History Oil: A Beginner’s Guide (new edition) Growth From Microorganisms to Megacities Vaclav Smil The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2019 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced

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human societies. This assignment will take us from bacterial invasions and viral infections through forest and animal metabolism to the growth of energy conversions and megacities to the essentials of the global economy—while excluding both the largest and the smallest scales. There will be nothing about the growth (the inflationary

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their sizes is greater than for any common structural artifacts, from flimsy corrugated metal, plywood, and plastic sheet shacks of the poorest slums in the megacities of Africa and Asia to obscenely sized mansions (many in excess of 1,000 m2) built in assorted pseudo-styles, particularly in California and Texas

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fed the city’s numerous samurai and temple gardens and it was in use until 1965, when it was replaced by the Tonegawa system. Modern megacities (with more than 10 million inhabitants) have the most elaborate water supply systems and New York’s Delaware aqueduct, completed in 1945, is not only

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2016). About 85% of them (436 cities) had populations between 1 and 5 million, 45 were between 5 and 10 million, and there were 31 megacities of more than 10 million people (more about them later in this section). In addition, there were also 551 cities with populations between 500,000

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depopulation still affect much smaller populations than do the benefits and downsides resulting from the continuing expansion of smaller cities and from the rise of megacities. Urban growth has many quantifiable consequences and (using the term not in the strict physical sense) some of them have become known as laws (Batty

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unequaled multiplication of primary energy use lowered the difference, urbanites still averaged 50% more energy in 2010 (Chu et al. 2016). But the diversity of megacities makes generalizations concerning energy and material flows elusive: Kennedy et al. (2015) found that in terms of per capita use the difference between the lowest

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- and highest-consuming megacities in 2010 was 35-fold for steel, 28-fold for energy, 23-fold for water, and sixfold for cement, while the greatest difference in per

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,000 people/km2. And high concentrations on the order of 50,000 people/km2 are commonly found in the most densely populated parts of Asian megacities, while Los Angeles, the most densely populated metropolitan area in the US, averages just over 1,000 people/km2. Assuming an age- and sex-weighted

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advantages of such locations have been only strengthened with the rise of modern inexpensive mass-scale marine transportation. In 2017, 14 of the 20 largest megacities were in coastal lowlands, and McGranahan et al. (2005) calculated that at the beginning of the 21st century cities in coastal ecosystems housed nearly 15

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acute in Africa’s growing cities with their extensive slums) and lack of affordable housing for lower-income families—will only increase in many new megacities. The most likely outcome is that by 2050 there will be 2.5 billion people added to the world’s urban population, with just three

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equivalent to, or larger than, many small countries and with populations larger than those of most EU countries. These aggregations of humanity are known as megacities, while the extended urban area whose growth has eventually resulted in several merging cities is best described as an agglomeration or, pace Geddes (1915), as

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first, and is still perhaps the most famous, example of a megalopolis (Gottmann 1961). Megacities The usual dividing line between a large city and a megacity is put at 10 million inhabitants. But wherever that divide might be, megacities must be studied as functional units, not according to any official administrative delimitations. The

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distinction is illustrated by focusing on New York and Tokyo, the two original megacities. New York City (encompassing five boroughs centered on Manhattan) has a total area of 789 km2 and in 2016 it had a population of 8

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Hong Kong, where some 65 million people lived in 2015 spread across an area of about 56,000 km2 (HKTDC 2017). Before the rise of megacities, most of the world’s largest cities during the preindustrial era were in Asia: eight out of ten in 1500 and still six out of

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US, and only one (New York) remained by 2010. When using an extended functional definition, New York and Tokyo were the world’s only two megacities in 1950, and a quarter of a century later they were joined by Mexico City. The next 25 years saw the fastest additions to the

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global list, with 18 megacities by the year 2000, 29 by the end of 2015, and 31 in 2016 (UN 2016). Tokyo remained in the lead, and its exceptional size

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and recycling. But, fortunately, Tokyo is exceptional in that it has avoided or solved other problems common in megacities, some in truly exceptional ways: its criminal rate is lower than in any other megacity, its air (significantly polluted until the late 1970s) is relatively clean thanks to highly efficient vehicles, imports of

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. In the global ranking, the city is followed by New Delhi, Shanghai, Mumbai, São Paulo, Beijing, and Mexico City. In 2015, 24 of the 31 megacities were in low-income countries (the global “South,” as the UN calls it), with Asia having 18, China six, and India five. New York, the

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25th, another clear indicator of Europe’s diminishing global importance. Given their size, it is not at all surprising that the annual growth of most megacities was slower than that of the whole urban population, which slowed down to about 2% between 2010 and 2015 (from more than 3% in the

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just 0.76% in affluent countries to almost 4% in the poorest nations. Karachi, New Delhi, Dhaka, Guangzhou, and Lagos have been the fastest growing megacities since the 1990s, all in excess of 3%/year, followed by Mumbai, Istanbul, Beijing, and Manila (Canton 2011). The UN expects 10 additional

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megacities by 2030, six in Asia (including Pakistani Lahore, and Hyderabad and Ahmedabad in India), three in Africa (Johannesburg, Dar es Salaam, Luanda), and Colombia’s

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, Hong Kong’s most densely populated district in Kowloon (east of the former airport’s runway), houses more than 57,000 people/km2 (ISD 2015). Megacities span a wide range of developmental stages, from such mature metropolitan areas as London and New York to rapidly expanding agglomerations of housing and economic

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activity as New Delhi, Karachi, or Lagos. All megacities, regardless of their developmental stage, face the challenges of worrisome income inequality, poor living conditions for their low-income families, and inadequate and decaying infrastructures

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(most often evident in the state of public transportation). In addition, emerging megacities in low-income countries share serious to severe environmental problems (including crowding, air pollution, water pollution, and solid waste disposal), high unemployment levels (alleviated by

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extensive black economy sectors), and public safety concerns. And megacities also face what Munich Re, one of the world’s leading reinsurance companies, calls megarisks, as the unprecedented accumulations of population, infrastructures, economic activities, and

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-rises, subways, industries, and extensive real estate devoted to services. But they must consider the risks arising from loss potentials that are far higher in megacities than in any other settings, because even a single and time-limited failure (a serious accident closing down major subway lines, a high-rise fire

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insured losses covered only about $3 billion. Moreover, as Munich Re (2004, 4) also notes, long-term risks are much more serious due to “many megacities being virtually predestined to suffer major natural disasters.” Earthquakes and cyclones (hurricanes, typhoons) are the most widespread risks, but in some

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megacities a considerable number of fatalities could be also caused by heat waves and by storm surges (aggravated by the rising sea level) and volcanic eruptions.

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of the modern global economy (be it in terms of goods, travel, information, or financial flows), there can no longer be any just strictly local megacity failure. A major earthquake in Tokyo or in Beijing (cities relatively prone to such events) may trigger a global recession. The necessity to minimize the

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spread of a potentially pandemic infection (leading to severed air links) may cripple the everyday life and economic performance of closely linked megacities on different continents. And it now appears to be only a matter of time before the world sees its first gigacity with more than 50

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the world of mass material demands. There has not been (because there cannot be) any Moore’s law-like progression in building essential infrastructures, expanding megacities, and manufacturing vehicles, airplanes or household appliances where even reductions of an order of magnitude (that is maintaining the performance with only a tenth of

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of nitrogenous fertilizers causing eutrophication of aquatic environments; the health effects and material damage caused by the photochemical smog that is now common in all megacities; and the rapid loss of biodiversity caused by such diverse actions as mass-scale monocropping and tropical deforestation. The largest externality that remains unaccounted for

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. Frankfurt am Main: Allianz. https://www.allianz.com/content/dam/onemarketing/azcom/Allianz_com/migration/media/press/document/other/kondratieff_en.pdf. Allianz. 2015. The Megacity State: The World’s Biggest Cities Shaping Our Future. Munich: Allianz. Alroy, J. 1998. Cope’s rule and the dynamics of body mass evolution in

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/r2007024.pdf. Canning, D., et al. 2015. Africa’s Demographic Transition: Dividend or Disaster? Washington, DC: World Bank. Canton, J. 2011. The extreme future of megacities. Significance (June):53–56. CARC (Canadian Agri-Food Research Council). 2003. Recommended Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Farm Animals: Chickens, Turkeys

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, J. W. 1961. Productivity Trends in the United States. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kennedy, C. A., et al. 2015. Energy and material flows of megacities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 112:5985–5990. Kentucky Derby. 2017. Kentucky Derby winners. https://www.kentuckyderby.com/history/kentucky

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. Mumby, H. S., et al. 2015. Distinguishing between determinate and indeterminate growth in a long-lived mammal. BMC Evolutionary Biology 15:214. Munich Re. 2004. Megacities—megarisks: Trends and challenges for insurance and risk management. http://www.preventionweb.net/files/646_10363.pdf. Murphy, G. I. 1968. Patterns in life history

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Meat, 73, 77, 113, 149–151, 154, 168, 343, 376, 413, 458 consumption of, 113, 118, 120, 391 production of, 4, 145–148, 151, 391 Megacities, 246, 254, 339–340, 343–344, 347–353, 393, 403 Mesopotamia, 28, 304, 332–333, 357, 361, 370–372, 440 Microbiome, 72, 168, 226 Milk

How Africa Works: Success and Failure on the World’s Last Developmental Frontier

by Joe Studwell  · 6 Dec 2025  · 393pp  · 148,223 words

very big African cities and what you do is try to have a foothold in those cities.’ In Tazi’s business, he focuses sales on megacities that include Dar es Salaam, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Kinshasa, Lagos, Abidjan, Dakar and Algiers. The market is a series of widely dispersed conurbations. A political

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quarter of South America. Africa promises to become a ring of densely populated coasts surrounding a vast, sparsely populated hinterland with a smattering of inland megacities like Addis Ababa and Nairobi.4 It is in urban labour markets that demographic change has had its biggest impact. Every month about a million

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309 colonial road building around 245 consumption cities 57, 294 demand, as engines of 41 disease burden and 4, 22 infrastructure project funding and 42 megacities 302, 309 population numbers/densities 22, 39, 40, 42, 43, 234, 244, 248, 302, 309, 385n rural-urban food supply chains and 251 urbanisation and

The Human City: Urbanism for the Rest of Us

by Joel Kotkin  · 11 Apr 2016  · 565pp  · 122,605 words

found the human city CONTENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1 What Is a City For? CHAPTER 2 The Importance of Everyday Life CHAPTER 3 The Problem with Megacities CHAPTER 4 Inside the “Glamour Zone” CHAPTER 5 Post-Familial Places CHAPTER 6 The Case for Dispersion CHAPTER 7 How Should We Live? ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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Sciences found that New York City—despite its mass transit system and high density—was the most environmentally wasteful of the world’s roughly 30 megacities, well ahead of more dispersed, car-dominated Los Angeles.30 In one of the most comprehensive national reviews of GHG emissions, the Australian Conservation

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over 48 percent over the past decade; the Thai capital of Bangkok and Dhaka, Bangladesh, both grew some 45 percent. The world’s second-largest megacity, Jakarta, expanded 34 percent and now exceeds 30 million. Rapid urbanization has also spread to Latin America, although, unlike Africa and India, these countries

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90 percent, and Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Suriname will exhibit urbanization rates above 80 percent.18 These numbers suggest that the future of megacities will be in the developing world. This will be most marked in those countries that still have large rural hinterlands that can export surplus populations

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. This may be most likely in places like China that have developed powerful industrial and technological sectors and enjoy an expanding domestic market. But most megacities, as presently constituted, have little chance of gaining international economic prominence. For one thing, they generally lack the characteristics—such as ethnic diversity, legal

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structures, technology, or manufacturing prowess—necessary to create the kind of economy that underpins successful global cities. These megacities are often very important to their countries, in large part due to political centralization, but none has come close to collecting the critical assets—in

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terms of infrastructure, education, health care, and even basic sanitation—necessary for becoming a competitive global city.25 In reality, megacities are plagued by inefficiencies and inherent problems that may keep most people from achieving prosperity and securing a powerful international role. For example, global management

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hypermetropoli which, with virtually no planning whatsoever, have expanded to accommodate monstrously multiplying populations.32 These realities suggest that perhaps the enthusiasm about the emerging megacities expressed in some accounts may be misplaced.33 Sometimes, it appears, observers conflate the street-level vibrancy of these cities with economic progress. “Bombay

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from “megapolitan elephantiasis,” a kind of collective dysfunction that left it with “pathological cells” that multiplied out of control. Eventually Rome, perhaps presaging the current megacity, became too large, bloated, and congested to sustain its role as the center of the empire. The emperors eventually moved their capital, first to Milan

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of their position, arrogance, and predatory behavior, while the middle class suffers from both.”68 This sense of disappointment is common in other developing-world megacities. In cities such as Cairo, Jakarta, Manila, Lagos, Mumbai, and Kolkata, the vast majority continue to live in “informal” housing that is often unhygienic,

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of disasters, natural or man-made. In India’s three largest cities, over 16 million people live in slums.69 Moreover, many of these unmanageable megacities—most notably Karachi70—offer ideal conditions for gang-led rule and unceasing ethnic conflict,71 which further threaten their economic development.72 National security experts

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Peter Liotta and James Miskel detail how megacity residents are highly subject to security challenges, including “anarchy, governmental collapse, ethnic rivalry, cultural grievances, religious-ideological extremism, environmental degradation, natural resource depletion, competition for

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much of the middle class has to “endure inhuman conditions” of congested, cratered roads, unreliable energy, and undrinkable water.79 Clearly many of the emerging megacities are ill prepared to handle rapid growth. Dhaka grows largely in its slums, which are mostly filled with former rural residents. These rural populations likely

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a host of health challenges that recall the degradations of Dickensian London. As Dr. Marc Riedl, a specialist in respiratory disease at UCLA, puts it, “megacity life is an unprecedented insult to the immune system.”81 In Africa, according to one researcher, the environmental and economic conditions are essentially diminishing the

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example, was made far worse by the extreme crowding in that affluent but heavily congested city.87 These dangers are, if anything, greater in developing megacities, many of which are located on polluted marshlands and brownfields.88 But perhaps the most physically evident result from intensified urbanization can be seen outside

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toward the countryside or to cleaner, less congested regions in Australia, New Zealand, and North America.98 THE INFRASTRUCTURE CHALLENGE To address these issues, emerging megacities are racing to manage their population growth by building sufficient infrastructure to maintain, and ideally improve, the lives of their citizens. Throughout the history of

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with their population. In the past, European, American, and Japanese cities grew their infrastructure to keep up with their growth and expansion. But in most megacities today, traffic congestion, for example, is worsening. Traffic, as anyone who has spent time in these cities easily notices, poses particular threats to riders and

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worse. At this stage of development, most industrial countries throughout history have more or less solved this issue, but residents of China’s relatively rich megacities still endure some of the same water-related challenges experienced in poorer Asian or African cities. There are even indications that toxicity levels in the

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make them any more healthful, or even more economically beneficial, for the vast majority of their residents.121 Still, some experts praise the rise of megacities and see them as naturally occurring phenomena tied to “globalization and technological change.”122 Other Western pundits assert that “the inexorable logic of the mega

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urban growth around the world.127 But given the high degree of poverty, low education levels, and dysfunction in these slums and in most developing megacities, this writer and other Western pundits might reconsider their celebration of such places. A 2014 National Geographic article, for example, feted the intrepid entrepreneurial

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to urbanization. An impressive 2014 study by the McKinsey Global Institute, called “Mapping the Economic Power of Cities,”133 found that “contrary to common perception, megacities have not been driving global growth for the past 15 years.” Many, the report concludes, have not grown faster than their host economies.134 This

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In the coming decade, McKinsey predicts that growth will shift to 577 “fast-growing middleweights,” many of them in China and India, while, in contrast, megacities will underperform economically and demographically. The rapid rise of agricultural productivity—the “green revolution”—may depress the demand for labor in more rural villages, but

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, notes Singapore-based scholar Kris Hartley, also reflects a growing shift of industrial and even service businesses to more rural locales, particularly in Asia. As megacities become more crowded, congested, and difficult to manage, Hartley suggests, companies are finding it more convenient, less costly, and—critically—better for the families

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as we have seen, with little effect. High prices in these congested, crowded cities make upward mobility, even with growth, difficult and housing prohibitive. “All megacities,” Sharma writes, “are therefore a ‘costly affair’ beyond sustainable resources and beyond the priority needs of the majority of Indians.”148 This is made worse

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Kanti Bajpai, but better cities that can better reward entrepreneurship and hard work. Improvements could include not only the expansion of the urban periphery around megacities but also the construction of a host of “completely new cities”—as occurred in the United States and the United Kingdom following their periods of

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unprecedented number of villages had transitioned from rural to urban (predominantly non-agricultural employment).153 This move is likely to impact firms now located in megacities. “We are inevitably getting more competition from elsewhere,” notes R. Suresh Kumar, human resource manager at Mumbai-based Associated Capsules. “2,000 rupees a

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widespread, instantaneous communications and quick travel—global influence among regions will depend upon these regions’ specialization in particular critical industries. As we saw with the megacity, it is not size that matters but competence and efficiency. This allows Singapore, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, and the San

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a high degree of cleanliness, and excellent cultural and recreational facilities. They generally lack the extreme congestion, high crime, and sanitation challenges common to poorer megacities of the developing world. In large part, it is these characteristics that attract foreign capital and talent to these particular cities. One indication can be

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foreign subsidiaries; efficient, globally focused Singapore now has more than twice as many regional headquarters than farlarger Tokyo, not to mention Asia’s less affluent megacities.24 Global hubs often are helped by their populace’s facility with English—the world’s primary language of finance, culture, and most critically, technology

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is most pronounced in the hearts of the most vibrant urban cores—from small North American global cities to European metropolises to Asia’s biggest megacities. The notion that height is a symbol of modernity, efficiency, and even aesthetics is common among urbanists. Today’s physically developing city has become

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bifurcation, conditions similar to those seen during the centuries leading to the eventual dissolution of the Roman Empire. Enforced densification, heralded by the rise of megacities, will also negatively impact urban areas in the developing world, where the vast majority of urban growth is taking place. People leave the countryside to

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July 1). “Economic Crisis Curbs Migration of Workers,” Wall Street Journal, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124636924020073241. BARTA, Patrick and Krishna POKHAREL. (2009, May 13). “Megacities Threaten to Choke India,” Wall Street Journal, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124216531392512435. BARTLETT, Dana. (1907). The Better City: A Sociological Study of a Modern

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section/czech-life/a-look-behind-the-thin-walls-of-czech-panelak-apartment-buildings. BOSELEY, Sarah. (2014, March). “Sanitation, swift action when battling pandemics in megacities,” Taipai Times, http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2014/03/02/2003584664. BOSKER, Biana. (2014, August 20). “Why haven’t China’s cities learned

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of India, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Incredible-India-Indeed/articleshow/5232986.cms. DESOUZA, Kevin C. (2014, February 18). “Our Fragile Emerging Megacities: A Focus on Resilience,” Planetizen: The Urban Planning, Design, and Development Network, http://www.planetizen.com/node/67338. DEWAN, Shaila. (2013, December 4). “Home

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GIMBLETT, Barbara. (2008). “Performing the City: Reflections on the Urban Vernacular,” Everyday Urbanism, New York: The Monacelli Press. KLEEMAN, Jenny. (2010, October 15). “Manila: A megacity where the living must share with the dead,” The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/15/philippines-overpopulation-crisis. KLINENBERG, Eric. (2012). Going

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Jan. (2006). “Mumbai’s Mysterious Middle Class,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, vol. 30, no. 4. NIJMAN, Jan and SHIN, Michael. (2014). “The Megacity,” Atlas of Cities, Princeton: Princeton University Press. NIR, Sarah Maslin. (2013, November 22). “The End of Willets Point,” New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com

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can-never-buy-8844198.html. TOFFLER, Alvin. (1980). The Third Wave, New York: Bantam Books. TORTAJADA, Cecilia. (2008). “Challenges and Realities of Water Management of Megacities.” Journal of International Affairs, vol. 61, no. 2, http://www.thirdworldcentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/challengesmexicocity.pdf. TOULMIN, Steven. (1990). Cosmopolis: The Hidden

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pp. 20–37; Bruegmann, 2005, p. 25; and Francis M. Jones, 1973, p. 259, 2716. 42Cox, “Southeast England Population.” Calculated from census data. 43Cox, “World Megacities.” Calculated from census data. 44Peterson, 1977, pp. 62–65. 45See Clapson, 2000, pp. 151–174. 46Howard, 1902, p. 38. 47See Peterson, 1977, pp. 62–65

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; http://www.economist.com/news/business/21565244-chinese-firms-are-new-challengers-global-construction-business-great-wall-builders; and http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/05/megacities-economic-growth-ecological-crisis/. 126http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/13/in_praise_of_slums. See Kenny, 2014. 127Sharma, Khan, and Warwick., 2000,

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separate demography for the rich, 57 on suburbs, 170 Brave New world (Huxley), 139 Brazil aging population in, 124–125 declining growth rate in, 55 megacity growth in, 73 protests against development priorities in, 13 urbanization in, 53 Bridgeport, 183 Britain. See Great Britain Broadacre City, 45 Bronx, 96–97 Brookhaven

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in, 66 housing affordability in, 133, 196 housing investors from, 100 housing shortage in, 175 inequality in, 102–103 infrastructure lack in, 69 megacities in, 51, 53, 54 megacity growth in, 73–74 migration in, 62–63, 76, 77 millennial living preferences in, 173 multigenerational households in, 183 post-familialism in, 119

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–120 quality of life protests in, 67 secularism in, 126 Singaporean immigrants from, 99 slowing of megacity growth in, 73 tech employment in, 185 telecommuters in, 188 walled cities in, 57–58 Choices, respecting, 167 Cincinnati, 28, 144 Cinco Ranch, 141–

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86 glamour zones in, 81 housing affordability in, 133, 160 immigrants to, 98 improved sanitation in, 116 inequality in cities of, 95 infrastructure of, 67 megacities in, 52 middle class move to periphery, 116 migration to, 137–138 millennial living preferences in, 172 post-familialism in, 117–119, 133 renovation of

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in, 179 high-income metropolitan areas in, 183 house size in, 179 housing affordability in, 133–134, 160 immigrants to, 98 improved sanitation in, 116 megacities in, 52 Mexican immigration to, 139 migration to, 137 millennials in, 170–171 movement of city center populations in, 165 multigenerational households in, 182–183

Autonomous Driving: How the Driverless Revolution Will Change the World

by Andreas Herrmann, Walter Brenner and Rupert Stadler  · 25 Mar 2018

Driving 20 this technology be? How will legal and regulatory conditions have to be changed? How can traffic be organised with this technology, especially in megacities? Can autonomous driving improve a nation’s prosperity and competitiveness? These questions and others have to be answered so that autonomous mobility can be used

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. Driving a car can also be tedious and boring, when one considers the frequency and duration of traffic jams that occur every day, especially in megacities such as São Paulo, Cairo, Delhi, Beijing or Mumbai. People have had to adapt their lives to the traffic situation and many hundreds of kilometres

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spaces due to wide roads and enormous parking areas. The solution to this and other traffic problems is the key challenge in the development of megacities; if it is not solved, the result will be constant gridlock and all of its economic and social consequences. This is where autonomous vehicles come

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y s Cars are valued possessions for many people, also because they represent social status. Nonetheless, driving can be tedious and boring, especially in the megacities of the world. The social costs of mobility (accidents, fuel consumption, emissions, land use, etc.) are enormous, as shown by the alarmingly low seat-mile

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and the vehicles could drive themselves to the charging stations. SUSTAINABILITY Air pollution caused by traffic has increased enormously in recent years, especially in the megacities of Asia and Latin America. On many days each year, particulate-matter pollution is so high that roads have to be temporarily closed and the

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vehicles are connected with the infrastructure, the Internet, one’s home and workplace, a large variety of information and communication services can be developed. Many megacities are facing total gridlock, which is why new traffic concepts such as autonomous driving are needed in order to improve traffic flows. Autonomous vehicles for

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. TIME Autonomous driving is connected with the improved use of time and saving time, while commuting to and from work, for example. In the populous megacities such as São Paulo, Mexico City, Beijing or Cairo, it takes a long time to drive from home to work and back again. These cities

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a penetration rate of 6 per cent worldwide. Acceptable pricing is likely to be crucial also for the spread of autonomous vehicles, especially in the megacities of emerging markets, where this technology is urgently needed. According to initial estimates, the price of an autonomous vehicle could be about $10,000 above

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countries. So from this perspective, there are great possibilities worldwide for connected and autonomous trucks to protect the environment, improve traffic flows especially in the megacities and reduce transport costs. Fields 163 Meanwhile, a self-driving truck from Daimler equipped with radar, sensors and cameras is on the roads in Germany

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mobility platform Lyft, announcing plans to set up an on-demand network of self-driving cars. John Zimmer, president of Lyft, expects car ownership in megacities to be of little importance in 10 years. In 2016, Lyft already organised about 14.6 million rides per month, three times as many as

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has recently joined Beijing and Shenzhen as one of the centres of the Chinese automobile industry. Numerous startups have been established in and around this megacity that are developing autonomous electric vehicles. There are about 20 companies working on self-driving cars, one of which is especially prominent. Jia Yueting, billionaire

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example, it is advisable for a pedestrian to wait until several others want to cross as well, because drivers will not notice individuals. In some megacities in Brazil, people often drive right through red lights since the high crime rates make it far too dangerous to stop. For an illustration of

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number and duration of traffic jams. In the eyes of commuters around the world, this is a particularly critical argument for driverless cars, especially in megacities [64]. It is also linked to the hope of reducing fuel consumption and emissions of carbon dioxide and particulate matter. Amidst all of the euphoria

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must first be resolved. There is also major scepticism about whether it is possible to create the necessary infrastructure in such a large country, where megacities often have chaotic traffic situations. The dealers have observed their clients’ interest in and willingness to buy such cars, but the path towards autonomous driving

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a suitable interior lighting concept. The Luxe start-up in the United States has set up an on-demand valet parking service for customers in megacities where there is a permanent shortage of parking spaces. Using the Luxe app, car drivers in inner cities can order a valet who takes over

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to survive the technological disruption. (2) Google executives have repeatedly emphasised that their company would like to help to solve traffic problems, especially in the megacities, to improve safety on the roads and to conserve natural resources. By replacing fallible human operators with algorithms, software and computers, it seems quite feasible

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cars can be observed also 377 378 Autonomous Driving in Brazil and many other countries in the process of industrialisation. The result, especially in the megacities of Southeast Asia and Latin America, has been dramatic traffic situations with miles upon miles of traffic jams and catastrophic air quality. Rapidly implementing autonomous

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, which means nearly one million people will be killed on the roads in China every year. (2) Air pollution has become so bad, especially in megacities, that the threshold limits of the World Health Organisation are exceeded nearly every day. In Beijing for example, only a certain number of cars are

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are intended to pave the way for car manufacturers to implement self-driving cars. Emerging Societies 379 The roads and telecommunication networks in and around megacities are often newer and better than in many developed countries, although the same cannot be said of rural areas. Furthermore, many of these countries have

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thus take advantage of economies of scale. Autonomous driving, however, requires a wide variety of technical services that, at most, will be available in some megacities in emerging markets. These services include maintenance and repair of automated and self-driving vehicles, which calls for well-equipped garages and very well-trained

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, given their accident statistics and air pollution. There are many dramatic traffic conditions with miles of traffic jams and poor air quality, especially in the megacities of Southeast Asia and Latin America. Rapidly implementing autonomous and electric cars in emerging countries could improve road safety and protect the environment. People in

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markets are very open to new technologies. China and India now have a higher market penetration of smartphones than western Europe. In and around the megacities, roads and telecommunication networks are often newer and better than in developed countries. A service network also has to be created, however, which is a

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particular challenge in emerging countries. CHAPTER 37 URBAN DEVELOPMENT MEGACITIES The year 2007 served as a historic marker in the history of human settlement. For the first time, more of the world’s population lived

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the meantime, at least 37 further cities have crossed this line as well, and by 2025 it is anticipated that there will be some 40 megacities. Especially strong growth is forecast for particular cities including Mexico City (from 16.4 million in 1995 to an anticipated 24.6 million in 2025

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cities, population growth is 1.6 times as fast as in the world as 381 382 Autonomous Driving Figure 37.1. Road Networks in Chinese Megacities. Source: Sean Pavone/123RF.com (left), chuyu/123RF.com (right). a whole. It is thus foreseeable that 25 per cent of the world’s population

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number of smart-city challenges, all intended to improve the flow of traffic, reduce CO2 emissions and improve the quality of life in dramatically growing megacities. By the year 2030, some 50 per cent of the population of India will live in urban areas, with all of the challenges that entails

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FUTURE INITIATIVE There is no single entity and no single approach capable of implementing any of the traffic-management options discussed so far, especially in megacities. Solving this problem calls for interdisciplinary approaches, involving new ways to manage traffic problems from a variety of perspectives. The Audi Urban Future Initiative was

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cities but the reverse will be true by 2050: 70 per cent in cities and 30 per cent in the country. By 2025, some 40 megacities will have developed; the metropolises with the greatest growth will include Mexico City, Mumbai and Beijing. Functioning mobility creates the foundation for the world’s

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Manufacturers, 17, 21, 45, 55, 84, 179 181, 263, 331 Mapping, 94, 101 104 Index Mars Rover Curiosity, 153 Mass motorisation, 39 McKinsey & Company, 320 Megacities, 58, 381 383 Megatrends in mobility, 25 connectivity, 25 26 electrification, 26 27 sustainability, 27 28 urbanisation, 26 Melody of speech, 292 Mercedes, 137, 179

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, 22, 184, 206, 302 companies, 404 models, 343 services, 344, 384, 397 439 RIO platform, 167 Road(s), 103 experience management, 94 networks in Chinese megacities, 382 road-safety legislation, 192 and telecommunication networks, 379 traffic, 195 users, 108 Roadmap assistance systems, 71 77 categories of first autonomous vehicles, 82 development

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371 roads in, 86 traffic in, 195 University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, 120 Urban Challenge, 42 Urban development Audi urban future initiative, 384 386 megacities, 381 383 Shenzhen, 386 389 smart-city challenges, 383 Somerville, 386 389 traffic and art, 389 390 “Urban Parangolé” project, 384 385 Urban traffic, 17

If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities

by Benjamin R. Barber  · 5 Nov 2013  · 501pp  · 145,943 words

(Not Quite) Indestructible YURY LUZHKOV OF MOSCOW II. HOW IT CAN BE DONE CHAPTER 7. “PLANET OF SLUMS” The Challenge of Urban Inequality Profile 7. Megacity Headaches AYODELE ADEWALE OF LAGOS CHAPTER 8. CITY, CURE THYSELF! Mitigating Inequality Profile 8. Her Honor the Mayor SHEILA DIKSHIT OF DELHI CHAPTER 9. SMART

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League, the European Union’s Secretariat of Cities, the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, the Association of (U.S.) Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the Megacities Foundation, CityNet, and City Protocol—among many others. These clumsily named and seemingly dull bureaucratic constructions are in fact birthing an exciting new cosmopolis whose

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as Stuttgart’s Wolfgang Schuster, Barcelona’s Xavier Trias, and New York City’s hyperactive Michael Bloomberg. With or without authoritative underwriting, networked cities and megacities are likely to determine whether democracy—perhaps even civilization itself—survives in the coming decades, when the primary challenge will remain how to overcome the

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and everywhere, picking up the garbage. Indeed, as we will explore in wrestling with the challenge of urban inequality (Chapter 8), in many developing-world megacities, picking up the garbage has become a key to the informal economy and to the employment of the poor. The city’s defining association with

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half century since the eminent sociologist wrote, the city has taken still another leap forward: capital cities underwritten by megarhetoric have been morphing into networked megacities of tens of millions, intersecting with other cities to comprise today’s burgeoning megalopolises and megaregions in which an increasing majority of the earth’s

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population now dwells. Tribes still dominate certain cultures, but even in Africa megacity conurbations have emerged, representing territorially immense urban juggernauts that encompass populations of twenty million or more. Typical is Africa’s Lagos-Ibadan-Cotonou region, where

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a million—all of them growing rapidly.18 Then there is Kinshasa-Brazzaville, two interconnected cities separated by a river in rival “Congo” states. Other megacities have appeared in the Indo-Gangetic Plain, in China’s Pearl River Delta, as well as in the Northeast Corridor in the United States, Japan

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moon as staples of their political campaign patter. For some time, idealists and dreamers have looked even further—beyond our known urban behemoths and linked megacities—in search of Marshall McLuhan’s global village, a mote in his prescient eye sixty years ago, but today an abstraction being realized not only

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Calvinism, that freedom is itself part of the parable about man’s fall. Inasmuch as the city portends freedom, our destiny in capital cities (the megacities of the eighteenth century) can only be a descent from grace, however much it feels like progress. To see in the Fall a happy ascent

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the City: Some Preliminaries The city’s compass extends from settlements and small towns (if not quite village sized) of several thousand to imposing modern megacities with tens of millions. References to the “urban population” turn out to refer to entities of radically varying size, which is why announcing that more

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in any case undergoing constant change, as Daniel Brook’s fascinating “history of future cities” makes evident.5 Smaller “middleweight” cities are today outperforming many megacities in terms of overall household growth (see Table 2). According to McKinsey, Jakarta does better in this department than London, Jinan better than New York

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, and Taipei better than Los Angeles. Lagos actually outperforms twenty considerably larger megacities. Table 2: Top Cities in Terms of Absolute Household Growth, 2011–2025 (projected in terms of million households) Historically, too, the only constant has been

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a half-million and a million than for larger cities. Stuttgart cannot be called a town, but neither is it a capital city or a megacity. It typifies urban living in an urbanized Europe that is a model for the world. Economic inequality and unemployment often seem beyond the pale of

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rich and poor in so prosperous a nation makes inequality more egregious. The second slum planet comprises the third world, where the largest and newest megacities, growing at a lightning pace, account for the great preponderance of slum dwellers.10 As the Kerner Commission in the late 1960s once called America

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rapid growth of sprawling conurbations in nations on the Indian subcontinent, where Karachi, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Dhaka present themselves as much as megaslums as megacities.18 The danger is that in reading Davis and Harvey and the grim prophecies of Jeremy Seabrook in his alarming Cities of the South, we

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distorting that the city becomes indistinguishable from the latrine, drowning in its own excrement, literally as well as metaphorically.19 To Davis, “today’s poor megacities—Nairobi, Lagos, Bombay, Dhaka . . . are stinking mountains of shit that would appall even the most hardened Victorians.”20 That Davis’s stinking mountains of shit

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that used to be routine and widespread.”35 Slums in the developing world, on the other hand, much more encompassing and seemingly endemic to new megacities, often define urban life. Amelioration is hard to effect. Over a dozen years ago, David Harvey warned that the “problems of the advanced capitalist world

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economic opportunity and the seductive excitement of fresh lives of possibility (see Chapter 2), much of the rapid population growth in the developing world’s megacities has been the result of people pushed off the land by unemployment and the kind of global market competition local agriculture can’t combat. It

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northern states,” above all, Muslims.38 There is something to fight over. These pale but seductive opportunities have led to astonishing growth in third-world megacities in the absence of either mobility or genuine hope. In China, for example, construction worker colonies drawn from inland village China (where more than two

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, remains the one between “the West and the rest,” the developed world’s modest planet of slums and the developing world’s limitless, revolution-inciting megacity megaslums. As segregation fades on the first planet, it explodes on the other. In the developed world, local agricultural markets (green markets) serve the city

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to which rural peoples flee do not necessarily offer the possibilities of manufacturing that the developed world’s cities once did. The result: massive new megacity slums embodying a new segregation, with nothing like the possibilities of the towns of an earlier era. James K. Galbraith sees speculative markets as a

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in all its forms can be addressed are we likely to instigate mitigation successfully. Profile 7. Megacity Headaches AYODELE ADEWALE OF LAGOS Being mayor anywhere is a tough job. Running the show in an African megacity with burgeoning megaslums in what is nonetheless a relatively wealthy city in a mineral- and oil

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is “the youngest elected Chairman [ever, who has made] his local community which used to be slum . . . into a cosmopolitan city within the fastest growing megacity in Africa. He has created an economic growth hub for the state. He has brought free healthcare, good roads, fuller citizen participation, security to the

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operating locally while engaging globally to solve real problems with real fixes. That would be a boon to any global metropolis. In a developing world megacity in Africa like Lagos, it is—let’s not be patronizing and call it a miracle—a genuine blessing. CHAPTER 8. CITY, CURE THYSELF! Mitigating

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government, as much about the invisible economy as about public jobs or formal corporate institutions. As Katherine Boo poignantly shows, the reality in third-world megacities in Africa, Latin America, and Asia is an informal economy that offers employment to the technically “jobless,” lodging to the technically “homeless,” and hope, however

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gifts of Robert Wilson are what make the arts sticky, connecting people around the world in ways culture may not always contemplate. In Kinshasa, a megacity in the sometimes anarchic Republic of the Congo, a symphony orchestra was conceived and made real as a musical rebuke to third-world stereotypes.18

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that cities already pursue.”3 My proposal for a parliament of mayors is no grandiose scheme, however, no mandate for top-down suzerainty by omnipotent megacities exercising executive authority over a supine world. It is rather a brief for cities to lend impetus to informal practices they already have in place

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, Wrocław, Gdansk, Tijuana, and others like them to the planning table, honoring the reality that to speak of cities is not just to speak of megacities, and that towns with anywhere from 50,000 to 500,000 citizens must be part of a viable global order of cities. The makeup and

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delegates of the special interests of particular cities (Hong Kong as a port city, London as a financial capital, Kinshasa as a land-locked African megacity), mayors convened in a global parliament must also see themselves as deliberative judges of global public goods, embodying the Burkean common spirit. Such a spirit

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more cities than seats in the parliament, even when multiplied by three sessions a year over several decades. One might also ask whether certain global megacities must be regularly represented because of their size, geography, and demographics (emulating the U.N. Security Council, on which the major post–World War II

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every size are included in each session, the parliament could offer seats to each of three tranches of cities based on population: 50 seats to megacities over 10 million whose participation is crucial; 125 seats to cities between 500,000 and 10 million in population that stand for the great majority

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to population and be counted in a second supplementary accounting in weighted terms—each 500,000 citizens represented comprising one vote. The mayor of a megacity of 20 million would cast one “city vote,” but also be counted in the supplementary balloting as casting 40 demographic votes worth 500,000 citizens

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the parliament by their mayors; to pursue representation, they would have to elect to join the group from which cities are chosen by lot: 1. Megacities with populations of 10 million or more (50 seats); 2. Cities with 500,000 to 10 million population (125 seats); 3. Cities of 50,000

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percent in 1950. Today 90 percent of urbanization is occurring in developing nations, much of it in midsize towns and cities rather than just in megacities. There is, to be sure, some controversy over these figures because what counts as urban varies from region to region and can include people living

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than a million to 8 million, Kinshasa/Brazzaville from 200,000 people to nine million. Now factor in the percentage of people in these burgeoning megacities living in slums, and it becomes apparent that Davis’s Planet of Slums is really a third-world planet. 11. The Kerner Commission, Report of

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had slums for a long time (the first favela there was established in the 1880s), most of today’s megaslums are new excrescences of emerging megacities. 19. Jeremy Seabrook, Cities of the South: Scenes from a Developing World, New York: Verso, 1996. 20. Davis, Planet of Slums, p. 138. 21. Katherine

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(according to Peter Edelman, in the same American Prospect Roundtable.) 36. David Harvey, “Possible Urban Worlds” in Steef Buijs, Wendy Tan, and Devisari Tunas eds., Megacities: Exploring a Sustainable Future, Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2010, p. 168. 37. Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Preface, p. xx. 38. Ibid., p. 12. 39. Carl

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habitats, and they are the first and most immediate level of government and public service that citizens experience. 18. David Harvey, “Possible Urban Worlds,” in Megacities: Exploring a Sustainable Future, ed. Steef Buijs, Wendy Tan, and Devisari Tunas, Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2010, p. 278. 19. Harrington, The Other America, conclusion. 20

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; imagined, 16–18; innovations in, 7–8; instant, 16; interdependent, 106–140, 164–165; jurisdictional disputes, 9–11, 148–150; as marketplace, 14–15, 16; megacities, 15–16; networks of, 6–7, 8, 11–12; new, 55–58, 384n17; normative idea of, 40–41; and not-city, 63–66; older, 58

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Against Illegal Guns, 6, 113, 122–123, 129, 317 Mayors for Peace, 122–123, 128, 317 McCarthy, Kathleen, 117 McWorld, 143, 180 MedCities, 132–133 Megacities, 15–16 Menon, Anil, 106 Mer-Khamis, Juliano, 287 Metropolis, 16, 164, 316 Mexico, crime, 202, 381–382n66 Mexico City business revival, 223 Mexico City

Aerotropolis

by John D. Kasarda and Greg Lindsay  · 2 Jan 2009  · 603pp  · 182,781 words

of city dwellers is expected to double by 2050 to more than six billion people—the number alive on earth right now. The number of megacities (those with a population of ten million or more) will increase from three in 1950 to twenty-seven by 2025, housing 450 million people among

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Daley is so committed to expanding it. The city no longer sees itself in competition with its suburbs or St. Louis and Milwaukee, but with megacities half a world away—Mumbai and São Paulo. But Jackson’s district is historically the poorest, blackest, and highest taxed in Chicago—even its suburbs

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Zambia, where two-thirds of the inhabitants live in slums: T-shirts, TVs, and a “home theater system.” To Lagos, the world’s fastest-growing megacity, where more than half its residents live on less than a dollar a day: five thousand pounds of clothes, hot plates, cell phone chargers, speakers

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reinventing itself in the face of climate change. The battle against global warming will ultimately be fought in the streets. The world’s twenty largest megacities consume a staggering 75 percent of Earth’s energy. Buildings alone contribute 15 percent of all greenhouse gases, more than all forms of transportation combined

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end of contenders. In this competition, New Songdo would be its blunt instrument, its sharp edge. South Korea’s capital is the archetypal twentieth-century megacity, doubling in size every decade or so since 1950 to twenty-four million inhabitants—the second most populous on earth after greater Tokyo. But badly

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city of Dongguan, just up the road from Shenzhen. Twenty years ago, it was another fishing village; today it’s larger than Chicago. These instant megacities were inevitable. They didn’t have to happen here—they did because Deng and his successors willed them to—but they would have sprouted somewhere

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. The economics make too much sense. Research by the World Bank suggests the reason China’s megacities have grown so big, so fast is that the returns to scale have grown so massive. What has made this growth possible, the bank argued

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big as it is—with seven million inhabitants, it’s around the size of Greater London—it can’t hope to keep up with the megacities next door. Presaging the World Bank’s findings, they determined Hong Kong didn’t have the scale to go it alone—it would eventually be

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China; now it seemed it couldn’t get close enough. Overheated rhetoric aside, the think tank’s top priority for merging the pair into a megacity of twenty million was to combine their airports, “creating a Hong Kong–Shenzhen super air hub that would be the focus of global attention.” Shenzhen

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,” the places where the spectral becomes corporeal—where globalization is made flesh in the form of cities. Castells identifies a “new spatial form” emerging: the megacity. His textbook example is the Delta, which he tellingly diagrams with Hong Kong on the edge and Guangzhou at its core. The most striking thing

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million farmers have already left their homes, and the gap between rich and poor, urban and rural, is widening. China’s solution is to build megacities in its interior, like Chongqing, which is officially three times the size of New Jersey and equally dense. China’s biggest challenge in the Instant

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ago, it was 230 million, and the goal is to match America’s 725 million passengers a year by 2020. While trains connect its coastal megacities, China is counting on its airports to bind east and west together, and then tie them all to the world. Or so explained Sha Hongjiang

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—an estimated eighty thousand protests each year in rural towns and villages, suppressed and kept (mostly) out of sight. Despite the size of its coastal megacities, China is less urbanized than its peers. Barely half its citizens live in one, far below the developed world’s 80 to 90 percent. The

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cities in the next twenty years. In obeisance to Jiang’s edict to “Go West,” they are being herded away from the coast toward new megacities rising inland. The fear of this influx and the slums it might create underlies China’s resolve to export its way out of poverty. The

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aren’t bad places, that there are five-star hotels going up, and the airports are easy to use.” No place embodies China’s inland megacity strategy quite like Chongqing. One of the master planners of its aerotropolis, a Dutchman, compares it to “Pittsburgh on steroids”; both cities perch above a

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Railway, the world’s fastest bullet train (top speed 217mph) connecting the pair in time for the Summer Olympics. The goal is to create a megacity in the north that can hold its own with the others around Shanghai and the Delta. Tianjin is larger than any city in America, and

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, and Aerotropolis Development in the Global Economy: Making Shanghai China’s True Gateway City.” In Shanghai Rising: State Power and Local Transformations in a Global Megacity, edited by Xiangming Chen, 15: 49–72. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009. ———. “From Airport City to Aerotropolis.” Airport World 6, no. 4 (August–September

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Eastern, 403, 404 China Shakes the World (Kynge), 391, 395 China Southern Airlines, 379, 403 China United, 404 Chongqing, China, 19, 387, 433; as Chinese megacity, 357–58, 394–97; growth of, 395–96 Christensen, Clayton, 370 chumby industries, 30, 366–67 Cisco, instant city contracts of, 358 cities: 20th century

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, 272–73; political opposition to, 273–74; prices driving, 268–69; promoted by word of mouth, 272, 276; to U.S.-owned hospitals abroad, 271 megacities, 10, 19, 364–65, 381 Melville, Herman, 329 Memphis, Tenn., 59–64; Cargo Alley in, 61; as company town, 62, 86; distribution business claimed by

No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Global Forces Breaking All the Trends

by Richard Dobbs and James Manyika  · 12 May 2015  · 389pp  · 87,758 words

at a speed never before seen in history. These developments are powering an explosive growth in demand, which compels us to reset our intuition. The megacities of these emerging economies—such as Shanghai, São Paulo, and Mumbai—are already on the radar of global companies. But the truly dramatic consumption growth

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offense and defense. Get to Know the Newcomers In the past, many large companies have done well by focusing on developed economies combined with the megacities of emerging economies. Today, that combination will gain them exposure to markets with 70 percent of the world’s GDP. But by 2025, this combination

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’s transportation infrastructure.32 Manage Operational Complexity For businesses looking to locate or expand in cities, operating costs are high and rapidly growing. Emerging-market megacities such as Shanghai and Mumbai are already home to some of the priciest commercial real estate in the world. In built-up areas, infrastructure can

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Kong and not on the Euronext in Paris.20 Many of these new consumers will come from relatively unknown “Middleweight” cities in emerging markets 1 Megacities are defined as metropolitan areas with ten million or more inhabitants. Middleweights are cities with populations of between 150,000 and ten million inhabitants. 2

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likely continue outperforming developed economies. The annual consumption in emerging markets will reach $30 trillion by 2025.21 Some 440 emerging-market cities, including 20 megacities (population over ten million), will account for nearly 50 percent of the additional GDP growth between now and 2025.22 TECHNOLOGY WILL BENEFIT CONSUMERS The

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Cities and Urban Clusters, Not Regions or Countries Global consumption is experiencing an unprecedented shift in power toward emerging-market cities. The continued rise of megacities—familiar entities with populations of ten million or more, such as Shanghai, São Paulo, and Moscow—is driving this trend. But the truly dramatic consumption

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will generate the GDP equivalent to the entire US economy by 2025.30 In China, the shift in the weight of consuming households from the megacities on the east coast to interior middleweight cities (populations of between two hundred thousand and ten million people) is already visible. In 2002, only 13

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emerging-market cities—Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Seoul, and Singapore—among the top ten.34 Rather than competing in the cutthroat retail markets in emerging-market megacities, many executives will find better growth opportunities in the rapidly growing middleweight cities. In Brazil, the GDP of São Paulo state is larger than that

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Shenzhen, 101 Tianjin, 5, 21 (fig.) Wuhan, 58–59 China’s Second Continent (French), 77 Cignifi, 177 Circular economy, 123–125 Cities. See Emerging cities; Megacities; Urbanization Clamadieu, Jean-Pierre, 108 Clarks Village, 93–94 Climate change, 119 Cloud technologies, 38, 172 Coca-Cola, 82, 106 Colbree, 84 Colombia, 164, 176

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Digital media Medical breakthroughs gene sequencing, 33–34, 60 life expectancy increase and, 60 nanomaterials, 35 sensors, 47 3-D printing, 37–38 Medtronic, 47 Megacities, 21 (fig.), 24, 100 Mercadona, 162 Mercedes, 175 Merkel, Angela, 181 Metals industry, 115, 116, 117 (table), 119–120, 124 Mexico, 113 (table), 123, 191

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, 190, 195–196, 199 retirement, 62, 65, 194–195 technological disruption and, 189–190 Polman, Paul, 178 Population economic center of gravity and, 18 of megacities, 24 mobile Internet, 6, 38, 42, 43 (table), 79, 97–98, 170 of new consuming class, 21–22, 94–95, 95 (table) overcrowded, 131 sharing

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, 115–116 economic center of gravity and, 5, 16–18, 19 (fig.) infrastructure deficit in, 131–132, 133, 135–136 innovation and, 23, 25–28 megacities, 21 (fig.), 24, 100 new consumer adaptation and, 100–102 poverty reduction from, 21 resource efficiency and, 121 (table), 122–123 rural lifestyle compared to

Straphanger

by Taras Grescoe  · 8 Sep 2011  · 428pp  · 134,832 words

media recorded the officials’ impressions, but I hope they weren’t too positive. For if even a tiny fraction of the populations of the developing megacities of Asia, Africa, and Latin America pursue the suburban dream of a detached home for every family and a car in every garage, we’re

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. I had come to Moscow, in part, to see what the traffic in a developing economy with rapidly rising car ownership looked like. In such megacities as Lagos and Bangkok, average traffic speeds have slowed to a walking pace; in São Paulo, where daily backups routinely reach 160 miles, the rich

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Shanghai, Hyderabad, or Johannesburg: multiple lanes of cars, trucks, and vans, going nowhere, filled with pained passengers and even more aggravated-looking drivers. From megacity to megacity, only the smell of the exhaust and the makes of the vehicles seem to change. But in Moscow, it turns out, there is one surefire

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’d never been in a place where so many people used subways and trains with so little friction. A question nagged me, though: Is a megacity built by and for trains any better than one built by and for the automobile? In search of an answer, I decided to thrust myself

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, these high-density, mixed-use central areas help ensure that Tokyo has the most sustainable pattern of regional development among any of the world’s megacities. Not all of this is by design: the national government often prioritized industrial growth over the quality of life of urbanites. In many neighborhoods, it

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were right.” Despite Toronto-wide protests and two weeks of spirited filibustering by the opposition, the Harris government replaced Metro with a new “megacity.” Since 1998, this megacity has been represented by forty-four city councilors and made up of six previously separate municipalities, from Scarborough in the east to Etobicoke in

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crush. The dissolution of Metro, the rise of the car-dependent fringes, and the inability of transit to keep up with the spread of the megacity go a long way to explaining why Toronto ended up with a mayor like Rob Ford. While the residents of the 905 weren’t responsible

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.” New York Times, February 22, 2010. Emblin, Richard. “The Shame of Bogotá.” The City Paper, November 2010. Ferro, José Salazar. “Bogotá’s Recovery Process,” in Megacities: Urban Form, Governance, and Sustainability, ed. A. Sorensen. Dordrecht: Springer, 2010. Gray, Kevin. “Before Night Falls.” The New York Times Travel Magazine, May 23, 2010

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Life in Latin American Cities. Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2010. Moavenzadeh, F., and M. J. Markow. Moving Millions: Transport Strategies for Sustainable Development in Megacities. Dordrecht: Springer, 2007. Montezuma, Ricardo. Movilidad y Ciudad del Siglo XXI: Retos e Innovaciones. Bogotá: Editorial Universidad del Rosario, 2010. ——. “La transformation récente de Bogotá

The City: A Global History

by Joel Kotkin  · 1 Jan 2005

AND THE HELLENISTIC CITY ALEXANDRIA: THE FIRST GREAT COSMOPOLIS UNRAVELING OF ALEXANDER’S VISION CHAPTER FIVE - ROME—THE FIRST MEGACITY “THE VICTORIOUS ROMANS” THE MAKING OF THE IMPERIAL CITY ROME: THE ARCHETYPAL MEGACITY “A CONFEDERATION OF URBAN CELLS” CHAPTER SIX - THE ECLIPSE OF THE CLASSICAL CITY THE CITY OF MAN VERSUS THE

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fell to the Parthians. The Greek Indian colonies dropped even more quickly outside the orbit of the Hellenistic world.34 CHAPTER FIVE ROME—THE FIRST MEGACITY Titus Petronius, the son of wealthy Romans and courtier to Emperor Nero, spent his time carousing through the back alleys of the city’s streets

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. As Augustus himself is said to have remarked: “I found the city made of brick and left it made of marble.”18 ROME: THE ARCHETYPAL MEGACITY Augustus’s triumph at Actium in 31 B.C. over the armies of the last Ptolemaic monarch, Cleopatra VII, and her ally Mark Antony marked

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Claudius himself.22 Despite its blemishes, however, Rome represents something new in urban history. The very need to feed, clothe, and bring water to the megacity’s population forced many innovations in economic organization. The purpose of empire, suggested the world-wise Petronius, was to secure the resources to sustain the

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, like Dana Bartlett, were horrified by the ill effects of industrial urbanism. With the overthrow of capitalism, Friedrich Engels predicted the end of the large megacity and dispersal of the industrial proletariat into the countryside. The dispersing city dwellers would “deliver the rural population from isolation and stupor” while finally solving

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, for the first time, as an absolute majority of the global population. These developments were evident in the changing roster of the world’s largest megacities. In 1950, only two cities, London and New York, possessed populations greater than 10 million; half a century later, there were nineteen, all but three

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, the movement of European capitalism had created a “social revolution” undermining the older, largely village-based societies in Asia, South America, and Africa. The current megacities of the developing world represent the ultimate consequence of that revolution.17 With the arrival of the Europeans, the urban order in the East, long

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not been notably any more successful than other belief systems in coping with the ill effects of mass urbanization. The economic prospects of Middle Eastern megacities, like those in much of the developing world, have been further eroded by the rise of what the historian Manuel Castells labels “informationalism.” The increased

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saw its software exports increase twenty-six-fold. As global demand for talent expanded, the technology and service industries began to spread even to lagging megacities such as Calcutta.8 None of this brought an end to poverty in Calcutta, renamed Kolkata, or other Indian cities. In even the most economically

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other large places, but with an ever wider array of smaller cities, suburbs, and towns.2 THE CRISIS OF THE MEGACITY These shifts will be felt most acutely among the sprawling megacities of the developing world. In the past, size allowed cities to dominate the economies of their hinterlands. Today, the very

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girth of the most populous megacities—Mexico City, Cairo, Lagos, Mumbai, Kolkata, São Paulo, Jakarta, Manila—is often more a burden than an advantage.3 In some places, these urban giants

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, better-run cities such as Querétaro, Guadalajara, and Monterrey, or across the border to urban areas of el norte itself.6 In the Near East, megacities like Cairo and Tehran have suffered to keep pace with their exploding populations, while smaller, more compact centers such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi have

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a sprawling megagiant of 10 or even 15 million.8 THE LIMITS OF THE CONTEMPORARY URBAN RENAISSANCE As the twentieth century drew to a close, megacities in the advanced countries seemed to be enjoying brighter economic prospects. There was a statistically small but notable increase in residential development even in some

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headquartered in the suburbs; a quarter century later, roughly half had migrated to the periphery.15 These developments contradict the notion that a handful of megacities exercised the ultimate “command and control” centers of the global economy. Many elite service and financial firms remained in the established centers, such as Boston

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These decentralizing trends have taken an unmistakable toll on the overall economic relevance of New York, still the most important of the advanced world’s megacities. In the last three decades of the twentieth century—a period of explosive job growth across the United States—the city’s private sector created

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their wares. Natural theaters, cities provided the overwhelmingly rural populations around them with a host of novel experiences unavailable in the hinterland. Rome, the first megacity, developed these functions to an unprecedented level. It boasted both the first giant shopping mall, the multistory Mercatus Traini, and the Colosseum, a place where

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in American cities improved, new threats to the urban future surfaced in the developing world.41 By the end of the twentieth century, crime in megacities such as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo had devolved into what one law enforcement official called “urban guerrilla war.” Drug trafficking, gangs, and general

…

York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 30–31. 34. Grant, From Alexander to Cleopatra, 80–88; Piggot, op. cit., 4, 22. CHAPTER FIVE: ROME—THE FIRST MEGACITY 1. Petronius, The Satyricon, trans. J. P. Sullivan (New York: Penguin, 1986), 11–13. 2. Morris, op. cit., 37–38; Jéròme Carcopino, Daily Life in

…

Guardian, October 28, 2000; “The Music of the Metropolis,” The Economist, August 2, 1997. 30. Emrys Jones, “London,” in The Metropolis Era, vol. 2, The Megacities, ed. Mattei Dogan and John D. Kasarda (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1988), 105. 31. Hartog, op. cit., 121. 32. Henry Tricks, “Escape from the

…

; Raymond, op. cit., 318; Abu-Lughod, Cairo, 98–99. 24. Mattei Dogan and John Kasarda, “Introduction: Comparing Giant Cities,” in The Metropolis Era, vol. 2, Megacities, 23. 25. Alfred Crofts and Percy Buchanan, A History of the Far East (New York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1958), 142–52; Schinz, op. cit

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. Perlman, The Myth of Marginality: Urban Poverty and Politics in Rio de Janeiro (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 12; John Vidal, “Disease Stalks New Megacities,” The Guardian, March 23, 2002; “State of the World Population, 1996”; “Air Pollution for 40 Selected World Cities,” World Health Organization; Jorge E. Hardoy, “Building

…

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 233; “World Urbanization Prospects: The 2003 Revision”; Findley, op. cit., 27; Harry W. Richardson, “Efficiency and Welfare in LDC Megacities,” in Third World Cities, 37; Larry Rohter, “Model for Research Rises in a Third World City,” The New York Times, May 1, 2001; “Chilango Heaven

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In Need for ‘Safer Ground,’” The Wall Street Journal, June 24, 1998. 43. Linden, “The Exploding Cities of the Developing World”; Vidal, “Disease Stalks New Megacities”; Thomas H. Maugh, “Plunder of Earth Began with Man,” Los Angeles Times, June 12, 1994. 44. Drakakis-Smith, op. cit., 8, 38; Lofchie, op. cit

The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable

by Amitav Ghosh  · 16 Jan 2018

century; perhaps for that reason the possibility appears not to have been taken adequately into account in planning for disasters. Moreover, here, ‘as in most megacities, disaster management is focused on post-disaster response’. In Mumbai, disaster planning seems to have been guided largely by concerns about events that occur with

…

the most dire warnings large numbers of people will stay behind; even mandatory evacuation orders will be disregarded by many. In the case of a megacity like Mumbai this means that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, will find themselves in harm’s way when a cyclone makes landfall. Many will

…

are rendered inoperative, then India’s financial and commercial systems may be paralysed. But there is another possibility, yet more frightening. Of the world’s megacities, Mumbai is one of the few that has a nuclear facility within its urban limits: the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre at Trombay. To the north

…

, which is why it came as a shock to me when I learned, from a World Bank report, that Kolkata is one of the global megacities that is most at risk from climate change; equally shocking was the discovery that my family’s house, where my mother and sister live, is

…

’, 3714. 62 trapped by floodwater: Aromar Revi, ‘Lessons from the Deluge’, 3913. 62 homes to strangers: Cf. Carsten Butsch et al., ‘Risk Governance in the Megacity Mumbai/India—A Complex Adaptive System Perspective’, Habitat International (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.12.017, 5. 62 ‘of the

…

not been finalized (especially the renovation of the city’s water system) and third, informal practices prohibit planning and applying measures.’ (‘Risk Governance in the Megacity Mumbai/India’, 9–10). 63 in recent years: Because of emergency measures the death toll of the 2013 Category 5 storm, Cyclone Phailin, was only

…

planning horizon’. (‘An Assessment of the Potential Impact of Climate Change on Flood Risk in Mumbai’, 156). 64 ‘post-disaster response’: Friedemann Wenzel et al., ‘Megacities—Megarisks’, Natural Hazards 42 (2007): 481–91, 486. 64 disasters of this kind: The Municipal Corporation of Great Mumbai’s booklet Standard Operating Procedures for

…

/national/salt-pan-lands-in-mumbai-to-be-used-for-development-projects/article7569641.ece). 66 corrugated iron: Carsten Butsch et al., ‘Risk Governance in the Megacity Mumbai/India’, 5. 66 Arabian Sea: Cf. C. W. B. Normand, Storm Tracks in the Arabian Sea, India Meteorological Department, 1926. I am grateful to

…

many built-up areas.’ B. Arunachalam, ‘Drainage Problems of Brihan Mumbai’, 3909. 68 illness and disease: See Carsten Butsch et al., ‘Risk Governance in the Megacity Mumbai/India’, 4. 68 40,000 beds: Cf. Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai’s City Development Plan, section on ‘Health’ (9.1; available here: http

…

-prone location’ (‘Lessons from the Deluge’, 3914). 71 threatened neighbourhoods: Climate Risks and Adaptation in Asian Coastal Megacities: A Synthesis Report, World Bank, 2010 (available at file:///C:/Users/chres/Desktop/Current/research/coastal_megacities_fullreport.pdf). The report includes a ward-by-ward listing of the areas of Kolkata that are

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The End of Traffic and the Future of Transport: Second Edition

by David Levinson and Kevin Krizek  · 17 Aug 2015  · 257pp  · 64,285 words

China's Future

by David Shambaugh  · 11 Mar 2016  · 261pp  · 57,595 words

Wild Ride: Inside Uber's Quest for World Domination

by Adam Lashinsky  · 31 Mar 2017  · 190pp  · 62,941 words

A World of Three Zeros: The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Carbon Emissions

by Muhammad Yunus  · 25 Sep 2017  · 278pp  · 74,880 words

Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky: How the Top 1% of Entrepreneurs Profit From Global Chaos

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The Green New Deal: Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by 2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth

by Jeremy Rifkin  · 9 Sep 2019  · 327pp  · 84,627 words

World Travel: An Irreverent Guide

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Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America

by Angie Schmitt  · 26 Aug 2020  · 274pp  · 63,679 words

The Ministry for the Future: A Novel

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The Key Man: The True Story of How the Global Elite Was Duped by a Capitalist Fairy Tale

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Fall of Civilizations: Stories of Greatness and Decline

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The Dark Cloud: How the Digital World Is Costing the Earth

by Guillaume Pitron  · 14 Jun 2023  · 271pp  · 79,355 words

Cities in the Sky: The Quest to Build the World's Tallest Skyscrapers

by Jason M. Barr  · 13 May 2024  · 292pp  · 107,998 words

Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order

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Street Smart: The Rise of Cities and the Fall of Cars

by Samuel I. Schwartz  · 17 Aug 2015  · 340pp  · 92,904 words

Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World

by Steven Johnson  · 15 Nov 2016  · 322pp  · 88,197 words

A Burglar's Guide to the City

by Geoff Manaugh  · 17 Mar 2015  · 238pp  · 75,994 words

Frugal Innovation: How to Do Better With Less

by Jaideep Prabhu Navi Radjou  · 15 Feb 2015  · 400pp  · 88,647 words

Why the Dutch Are Different: A Journey Into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands: From Amsterdam to Zwarte Piet, the Acclaimed Guide to Travel in Holland

by Ben Coates  · 23 Sep 2015  · 300pp  · 99,410 words

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need

by Bill Gates  · 16 Feb 2021  · 314pp  · 75,678 words

Earth Wars: The Battle for Global Resources

by Geoff Hiscock  · 23 Apr 2012  · 363pp  · 101,082 words

Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol

by Iain Gately  · 30 Jun 2008  · 686pp  · 201,972 words

The Rough Guide to Toronto

by Helen Lovekin and Phil Lee  · 29 Apr 2006  · 257pp  · 56,811 words

Building the Cycling City: The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality

by Melissa Bruntlett and Chris Bruntlett  · 27 Aug 2018  · 230pp  · 71,834 words

Worth Dying For: The Power and Politics of Flags

by Tim Marshall  · 21 Sep 2016  · 276pp  · 78,061 words

The Lonely Century: How Isolation Imperils Our Future

by Noreena Hertz  · 13 May 2020  · 506pp  · 133,134 words

Lessons from the Titans: What Companies in the New Economy Can Learn from the Great Industrial Giants to Drive Sustainable Success

by Scott Davis, Carter Copeland and Rob Wertheimer  · 13 Jul 2020  · 372pp  · 101,678 words

How to Spend a Trillion Dollars

by Rowan Hooper  · 15 Jan 2020  · 285pp  · 86,858 words

Lonely Planet Turkey

by Lonely Planet  · 1,236pp  · 320,184 words

Material World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future

by Ed Conway  · 15 Jun 2023  · 515pp  · 152,128 words

Lonely Planet Mongolia (Travel Guide)

by Lonely Planet, Trent Holden, Adam Karlin, Michael Kohn, Adam Skolnick and Thomas O'Malley  · 1 Jul 2018

The Evolutionary Void

by Peter F. Hamilton  · 18 Aug 2010  · 857pp  · 232,302 words

Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life

by Adam Greenfield  · 29 May 2017  · 410pp  · 119,823 words

The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power

by Daniel Yergin  · 23 Dec 2008  · 1,445pp  · 469,426 words

Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion

by Elizabeth L. Cline  · 13 Jun 2012  · 256pp  · 76,433 words

Eastern USA

by Lonely Planet

The Enigma of Capital: And the Crises of Capitalism

by David Harvey  · 1 Jan 2010  · 369pp  · 94,588 words

The Land Grabbers: The New Fight Over Who Owns the Earth

by Fred Pearce  · 28 May 2012  · 379pp  · 114,807 words

24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep

by Jonathan Crary  · 3 Jun 2013  · 102pp  · 33,345 words

Sixty Days and Counting

by Kim Stanley Robinson  · 27 Feb 2007  · 526pp  · 155,174 words

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

by Klaus Schwab  · 11 Jan 2016  · 179pp  · 43,441 words

Mobility: A New Urban Design and Transport Planning Philosophy for a Sustainable Future

by John Whitelegg  · 1 Sep 2015  · 224pp  · 69,494 words

The Story of Crossrail

by Christian Wolmar  · 5 Sep 2018  · 292pp  · 85,381 words

Red Moon

by Kim Stanley Robinson  · 22 Oct 2018  · 492pp  · 141,544 words

Seriously Curious: The Facts and Figures That Turn Our World Upside Down

by Tom Standage  · 27 Nov 2018  · 215pp  · 59,188 words

China's Great Wall of Debt: Shadow Banks, Ghost Cities, Massive Loans, and the End of the Chinese Miracle

by Dinny McMahon  · 13 Mar 2018  · 290pp  · 84,375 words

God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World

by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge  · 31 Mar 2009  · 518pp  · 143,914 words

Underland: A Deep Time Journey

by Robert Macfarlane  · 1 May 2019  · 489pp  · 136,195 words

Likewar: The Weaponization of Social Media

by Peter Warren Singer and Emerson T. Brooking  · 15 Mar 2018

The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the World

by Atossa Araxia Abrahamian  · 7 Oct 2024  · 336pp  · 104,899 words

Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity

by Yoni Appelbaum  · 17 Feb 2025  · 412pp  · 115,534 words

The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

by Kevin Kelly  · 6 Jun 2016  · 371pp  · 108,317 words

The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism

by Arun Sundararajan  · 12 May 2016  · 375pp  · 88,306 words

Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles

by Ruchir Sharma  · 8 Apr 2012  · 411pp  · 114,717 words

Arrival City

by Doug Saunders  · 22 Mar 2011  · 366pp  · 117,875 words

The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding From You

by Eli Pariser  · 11 May 2011  · 274pp  · 75,846 words

What Technology Wants

by Kevin Kelly  · 14 Jul 2010  · 476pp  · 132,042 words

MacroWikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World

by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams  · 28 Sep 2010  · 552pp  · 168,518 words

The Locavore's Dilemma

by Pierre Desrochers and Hiroko Shimizu  · 29 May 2012  · 329pp  · 85,471 words

The Telomere Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer

by Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn and Dr. Elissa Epel  · 3 Jan 2017  · 381pp  · 111,629 words

The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age

by James Crabtree  · 2 Jul 2018  · 442pp  · 130,526 words

The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

by Ross Douthat  · 25 Feb 2020  · 324pp  · 80,217 words

Samsung Rising: The Inside Story of the South Korean Giant That Set Out to Beat Apple and Conquer Tech

by Geoffrey Cain  · 15 Mar 2020  · 540pp  · 119,731 words

Mbs: The Rise to Power of Mohammed Bin Salman

by Ben Hubbard  · 10 Mar 2020

The Nation City: Why Mayors Are Now Running the World

by Rahm Emanuel  · 25 Feb 2020  · 212pp  · 69,846 words

Covid-19: The Pandemic That Never Should Have Happened and How to Stop the Next One

by Debora MacKenzie  · 13 Jul 2020  · 266pp  · 80,273 words

Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand

by John Markoff  · 22 Mar 2022  · 573pp  · 142,376 words

After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul

by Tripp Mickle  · 2 May 2022  · 535pp  · 149,752 words

Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy

by Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake  · 4 Apr 2022  · 338pp  · 85,566 words

Dead in the Water: A True Story of Hijacking, Murder, and a Global Maritime Conspiracy

by Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel  · 2 May 2022  · 363pp  · 98,496 words

Horizons: The Global Origins of Modern Science

by James Poskett  · 22 Mar 2022  · 564pp  · 168,696 words

The Nowhere Office: Reinventing Work and the Workplace of the Future

by Julia Hobsbawm  · 11 Apr 2022  · 172pp  · 50,777 words

The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning With the Myth of the Good Billionaire

by Tim Schwab  · 13 Nov 2023  · 618pp  · 179,407 words

Small Men on the Wrong Side of History: The Decline, Fall and Unlikely Return of Conservatism

by Ed West  · 19 Mar 2020  · 530pp  · 147,851 words

Cathedrals of Steam: How London’s Great Stations Were Built – and How They Transformed the City

by Christian Wolmar  · 5 Nov 2020  · 352pp  · 98,424 words

Ghost Road: Beyond the Driverless Car

by Anthony M. Townsend  · 15 Jun 2020  · 362pp  · 97,288 words

The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth

by Tom Burgis  · 24 Mar 2015  · 413pp  · 119,379 words

Understanding Sponsored Search: Core Elements of Keyword Advertising

by Jim Jansen  · 25 Jul 2011  · 298pp  · 43,745 words

PostGIS in Action, 2nd Edition

by Regina O. Obe and Leo S. Hsu  · 2 May 2015

In Spite of the Gods: The Rise of Modern India

by Edward Luce  · 23 Aug 2006  · 403pp  · 132,736 words

The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning

by Jeremy Lent  · 22 May 2017  · 789pp  · 207,744 words

China's Superbank

by Henry Sanderson and Michael Forsythe  · 26 Sep 2012

Volt Rush: The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green

by Henry Sanderson  · 12 Sep 2022  · 292pp  · 87,720 words

Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

by Siddharth Kara  · 30 Jan 2023  · 302pp  · 96,609 words

Deadly Quiet City: True Stories From Wuhan

by Murong Xuecun  · 7 Mar 2023  · 236pp  · 73,008 words

House of Huawei: The Secret History of China's Most Powerful Company

by Eva Dou  · 14 Jan 2025  · 394pp  · 110,159 words

Hope Dies Last: Visionary People Across the World, Fighting to Find Us a Future

by Alan Weisman  · 21 Apr 2025  · 599pp  · 149,014 words

Amateurs!: How We Built Internet Culture and Why It Matters

by Joanna Walsh  · 22 Sep 2025  · 255pp  · 80,203 words

How the Railways Will Fix the Future: Rediscovering the Essential Brilliance of the Iron Road

by Gareth Dennis  · 12 Nov 2024  · 261pp  · 76,645 words