How to manage a megacity

[Music] in 1950 there were two mega cities in the world today there are 34 in 15 years time there'll be nearly 50. really big cities are great things they're some of the greatest things that mankind has ever created they make people wealthier and more productive they make them freer but the failure to manage the growth of megacities means they also come with mega problems overcrowding pollution filth slums and it could get much much worse by 2050 over 6 billion people could be living in cities so how could the mega cities of tomorrow manage some of the biggest challenges of today [Music] cities are growing faster than ever before the speed of growth of cities has enormously increased so it took london about 2 000 years to go from a town of 50 000 to a city of about 10 million people [Music] now shenzhen in china went through that same growth in 30 years the speed at which cities grow has become unprecedented in 1950 the world's population was 30 urban 70 rural by 2050 it will be the other way round with almost 70 percent or 6 billion people in cities many of the fastest growing cities are in the developing world with 90 of urban growth set to occur in sub-saharan africa and asia and in these areas megacities cities with over 10 million inhabitants are already struggling mumbai home to over 20 million people many of whom live in poor conditions due in part to poor urban planning i think a lot of the problems that mega cities have these days are planning issues it's at the edges of the cities where there is almost no planning where things really severely break down farmers who have tiny plots of land will sell that plot to a developer and nobody will be thinking about where the main road is going to go or where the school should be the result disorganized settlements lacking basic services leading to desperate living conditions there's almost no roads in these settlements there's sometimes no electricity there's no public water supply there are no sewers so where can mega cities find inspiration for a more joined up approach than mumbai just 300 miles away is a medabad a city of 7 million people where they've taken an innovative approach to urban planning the city's town planning scheme is designed to integrate the city's vital infrastructure as it grows rather than afterwards planners identify a wide area to build a new suburb and requisition a portion of land from all the farmers in that area land is set aside for new road grids and facilities farmers are handed back a reduced portion of their original land which they can sell their new plots are smaller but worth more because they will be served by better facilities there are certain public goods which the market left to itself will not usually supply for example social housing public parks schools often one advantage of the amber about system is that those things can be built into the process from the very beginning so you just get a sort of more equitable style of sprawl than you would than you would get otherwise compared with other indian cities ahmedabad suburbs are clearly more organized with planned public services roads and thousands of affordable homes there are arguments there is corruption within the system there are all sorts of problems but it does work much much better than anything else in the developing world [Music] smart planning can improve the way cities grow but a functioning transport system is essential greater los angeles with more than 12 million residents is notorious for its traffic jams and the air pollution they cause in 2017 a study found that congestion cost the city nearly 20 billion dollars in lost productivity they've built wider freeways and a light rail system introduced carpool lanes and even a smart traffic supercomputer but so far nothing has unstuck the jam la's troubles are a cautionary tale for other growing mega cities especially in emerging economies where car use is continuing to rise but help for some of the world's largest cities might just come from one of its smaller ones the finnish capital helsinki is home to a startup that's beginning to challenge the need for private cars and it's doing it on a whim wim is a smartphone app which combines every available mode of transport to select the best route across the city what sets wim apart from similar apps is that a single payment or even a monthly subscription covers all types of journeys from bus and tram trips to e-scooters city bikes and even ferries there is no mode out there that can compete with car ownership that can give the same service promises the car has been delivering but if we put them all together we start being able to say hey i can actually guarantee we can get you there helsinki is a far cry from the teaming mega cities of africa or asia but whim could be an interesting model for them precisely because it's focused on using existing modes of transport more effectively rather than building expensive new ones i think it could catch on in poorer larger more chaotic cities partly just because everybody has a smartphone now in those places it's not impossible to imagine that something similar could be built in in somewhere like lagos eventually perhaps the biggest challenge faced by the world's mega cities is their waste by 2050 total waste generation in south asia will double in sub-saharan africa it will triple in mega-cities like lagos or manila rubbish is either burned buried or left in the open to rot as it decomposes it releases greenhouse gases and chemicals that can contaminate water supplies yet there's one solution that's been around for decades recycling is not a new thing at all but in a mega city you need to do it at an absolutely enormous scale and with a high degree of sophistication the city of san francisco produces 300 truckloads of waste every day here at recycle central they're using technology that could mark a step change in how mega cities can reduce the environmental impact of rubbish it may not look all that different to other recycling operations but the big change here is the scale recycle central at pier 96 is a recycling superstructure with conveyor belts and magnets and optical and robotic sorters and every day we separate 550 tons of recycling into 12 different materials it's an increasingly automated setup that utilizes artificial intelligence technologies to help ensure san francisco diverts more waste from landfill than any major city in america we don't want to waste anything all that recycled material goes back to manufacturing facilities to be made into new products and that's only half the story 80 miles away they're scaling up an age-old method for dealing with even more of the city's waste composting is very old the romans did it 3000 years ago what's new is that san francisco is collecting food scraps on a city-wide basis and turning them into compost and sending it back to farms so we're combining something old with something new in this plant careful adjustments to airflow and water help control the natural rotting of waste to produce nutrient-rich compost we're creating the conditions here for the microbial colonies the microorganisms to do their job to break this material down into smaller and smaller pieces discarded branches from almond trees act as a natural filter absorbing the greenhouse gases emitted during decomposition the end product is another revenue stream a high quality compost which is sold to farms and vineyards across california no matter how you manage waste material there's costs involved the wonderful thing about recycling and about composting is that you can sell those materials it doesn't provide enough revenue to pay all the cost but does bring some revenue back to your city these solutions they make great sense in all cities this plant is kitted out with the latest machinery but composting at scale could also be done with cheaper tools to address the mountains of organic waste which pile up in many mega cities as with so many of the challenges facing mega cities at their population's trend ever larger the seeds for the solutions they'll need are already being sown in towns and cities across the world but it's the mega cities very size that might just prove their greatest asset mega cities have outsized problems but the wonderful thing about mega cities is that they do assemble clever people so mega cities are always going to throw up these incredibly challenging problems but they should always be able to cope with them through brain power and innovation [Music] i'm tom standage deputy editor of the economist and editor of the world ahead to read more of our future gazing coverage click on the link thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe [Music]

Channel: The Economist

Views: 778,250

Keywords: The Economist, Economist, Economist Films, Economist Videos, Politics, News, short-documentary, megacities, megacities documentary, megacity, cities, population, future, urbanisation

Id: 1z-D3nkfrkM

Length: 11min 37sec (697 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 23 2021