Eco-cities: Building sustainable urban communities 101World’s largest cities World’s fastest-growing cities
Total
Population growth*
City (millions) City (percent)- Tokyo, Japan 36.7 1. Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire 43.8
- Delhi, India 22.1 2. Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso 38.5
- São Paolo, Brazil 20.3 3. Lilongwe, Malawi 28.9
- Mumbai, India 20.0 4. Blantyre, Malawi 28.8
- Mexico City, Mexico 19.5 5. Abuja, Nigeria 28.4
- New York, United States 19.4 6. Huambo, Angola 26.1
- Shanghai, China 16.6 7. Luanda, Angola 26.0
- Kolkata, India 15.6 8. Jinjiang, China 25.9
- Dhaka, Bangladesh 14.7 9. Sana’a, Yemen 25.3
- Buenos Aires, Argentina 13.1 10. Hanoi, Vietnam 24.9
Karachi, Pakistan 13.1 Katmandu, Nepal 24.9
*2010–15.
source he Economist Pocket World in Figures, 2011 edition.
5 While the beneits of a developed infrastructure, public transportation system, employment
opportunities, better health care, and education, plus a wide range of services, make cities the
place to live, work, and enjoy, they are plagued with enormous problems. As engines of growth,
cities have also become engines of pollution, traic congestion, waste production, and environ-
mental destruction. Besides producing tons of garbage and carbon dioxide emissions, North
American cities, in particular, consume huge amounts of energy and leave a massive ecological
footprint.^1 Compared with an ideal ecological footprint of 1, Canada’s largest city, Toronto, with a
population of 5.4 million, covers 240 square miles and requires 200 times the area to meet its
resource requirements and absorb its waste. Vancouver’s ecological footprint is 180 times its size,
and London’s is 125 times.
6 Poor pollution control and substandard water and waste management have a devastating
impact on human health. Between 1664 and 1666, poorly managed water led for the second time
in history to the spread of the bubonic plague in London and the death of one in every ive citi-
zens. Cholera epidemics, which claimed thousands of victims in cities all over the world in the
1800s and early 1900s, are by no means a thing of the past, as recent WHO reports verify in Africa
today. In developing countries, cities with a high concentration of poor families housed in slums
and substandard living conditions have no sewage system or toilets. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, peo-
ple dispose of paper bags containing human waste by throwing them into the Buriganga River.
When cities like Nairobi, Johannesburg, and São Paulo ignore the urgent need for proper sanita-
tion and decent housing for the poor, violent crime and social unrest are the result.
7 he responsibility for city management lies with municipal governments that derive revenue
from service fees and property taxes. To build and maintain infrastructure, cities also depend on
federal and state or provincial government payment transfers. For several years, federal and state
governments with high debt loads have oloaded more responsibilities onto already cash-strapped
municipalities without providing the necessary inancial support. In addition to funding, city
governments need a clear vision for the future and innovative public administrators who can see
that vision through. Unfortunately, elected public oicials are more oten bogged down in crisis
(^1) A city’s ecological footprint is the total area of productive land that a city requires to provide resources and
absorb wastes divided by its geographical area.