As you point out in your special report on cities (“The World Goes to Town,” May 5, 2007), the majority of people will live in cities from this year onward. And you cite the United Nations’ forecast that by 2020 there will be nine megacities with more than twenty-million inhabitants each: Delhi, Dhaka, Jakarta, Lagos, Mexico City, Mumbai, New York City, São Paolo, and Tokyo. However, you do not seem to worry much about such unprecedented concentrations of people, especially in less developed countries. Of the nine megacities above, only two are likely to have the means and the expertise needed to cope with their hulking populations. At least three of the cities will have neither, while the remaining four will undoubtedly struggle to keep themselves afloat. Without international help, and a massive one, they are likely to become death traps. Or worse, as poor sanitation and meager health services are likely to make such cities the springs of nasty epidemics that can quickly spread around the globe. Your report could have sounded a warning regarding such dire prospects, to say the least. It keeps its happy-go-lucky tone through the end, though.

Addendum (January 10, 2021)

Year 2020 is behind us already, and it is thus time to check the UN’s forecast. According to Wikipedia,[1] now there are eleven megacities with more than twenty-million inhabitants around the globe: Delhi, Guangzhou, Jakarta, Manila, Mexico City, Mumbai, New York City, São Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai, and Tokyo. As it turns out, the forecast was not so bad. Again, a good number of these cities will have increasingly tough time dealing with their bulky populations. The current pandemic is a good example of troubles ahead. Awful sanitation and meager health services cannot but spell disaster for years to come. Alas!

Footnote

1. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megacity (accessed on January 10, 2021).