Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Megacities and the Developing World

Megacities and the Developing World is an article by George Bugliarello that has now been published full online:

'The large urban agglomerates we call megacities are increasingly a developing world phenomenon that will affect the future prosperity and stability of the entire world...

Despite the fact that megacities are increasingly a phenomenon of the developing world, there are three major reasons why the developed world needs to pay attention to them. First, what happens in the megacities of the developing world affects the rest of the world. The combination of high population density, poverty, and limited resources makes the developing world megacity an environment which favors the incubation of disease, from cholera to tuberculosis to sexually transmitted infections, that in an age of rapid communication can almost instantaneously be propagated to the rest of the world. Vulnerability to terrorism, natural hazards, ecological disasters, war conditions, and food scarcity are also exacerbated in the megacities of the developing world.'

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