cartesian

There are some 4,000 cities with populations greater than 100,000. Half the Homo sapiens on Planet Earth currently exist or subsist as urbanites. By 2050, cities in industrialised countries will have added 170 million inhabitants, while those in developing countries another 2.5 billion. Trillions will need to be spent; for if current trends hold, China needs to build one NYC every other year to meet its residential and commercial floor space needs over the next 20 years. India needs a Chicago every year.

Here's a question: Will futuristic urban India resemble a) Chicago, b) Dharavi (formerly Mumbai’s largest slum), or c) none of the above?

Researchers at UNH, Yale, and BU recently published a paper visualising the growth trajectories of 100 cities over 10 years, combining satellite data on city lights with SeaWinds scatterometry. Each city was broken into grids, each grid was plotted from 1999 (tail) to 2009 (head) on the x-axis and height on the y-axis. More horizontal arrows reflect greater expansion outward, more vertical arrows with expansion upward.

The results are distinct and fascinating.




Cities in India, much like those in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, have sprawled out rather than up.



By contrast, cities in the developed world added to their skylines with minimal peripheral growth.



Surprise! Cities in China did both. Resembling no other nation. And not just in Beijing and Shanghai.



As I have the privilege of wandering through more cities, such a difference it makes to have parks, superb public transport, preserved architectural heritage, breathing room, air you care to breathe, manifestations of relatively equitable wealth distribution... I sound spoiled, yes? But is it asking too much that we build a city to be resilient and prosperous for all its denizens? Can we justify aiming for anything less?