There are already 8 billion people on Earth, the latest UN World Population Prospects 2022 report showed. Even before the end of this century, the number of people in the world will reach a double-digit balance. One of the effects of this demographic express could be hundred-million-dollar cities, announces Karolina Kaim, CEO of Blueprint Group. According to the real estate industry specialist, the trend of concentrating more and more people in urban centers has been evident for a long time and will only increase.
Lagos times five.
Probably few remember the 2007 UN WPP report, and that’s when the big demographic breakthrough was announced. The following year (2008), for the first time in the world’s history, the urban population was expected to equal the rural population, then steadily, increasingly overtake it. Today, the World Bank estimates that more than 56% of humanity lives in cities. In 30 years it will be nearly 70%, the UN predicts.
“Megacities, with a population of about a hundred million, can be created in Africa, for example. Lagos, Kinshasa, Cairo, etc. – many of the urban centers there could grow many times over, mainly due to natural growth, which will be the highest there, next to Asia. At the other extreme will be huge cities in the richest regions, which will grow mainly due to population migration,” Karolina Kaim adds.
This year’s UN report makes it clear that another factor that makes it clear that there will be more and more of us on Earth, especially in cities, is our consistently improving life expectancy. Before the pandemic, it was about 73 years. By 2050, it will be over four years longer. And that means cities will have to “invent” a new way to function.
Non-urban paradox.
In view of the above data, it becomes crucial to fundamentally reform the functioning of cities. And here we must start with ourselves,” announces the CEO of Blueprint Group.
“I am close to Professor Carlos Moreno’s concept of the 15-minute city, where we have all services in the immediate vicinity. We don’t have to drive a car to the woods to run, we don’t have to use a car at all on the way to work. This, by the way, is already slowly happening, fortunately for the environment. Increasingly, people have a so-called “third place” as their “office” – a coworking zone, a café or simply a park bench. This is our opportunity for eco cities, but it depends on ourselves,” explains Karolina Kaim.
It is the cities, paradoxically, that will start to become more eco, as they eliminate cars. Outside the city, with long distances, life without a car will be much more inconvenient, the architect explains. Urban centers, she believes, will, however, face two major challenges – the reuse of waste and… buildings. The latter are currently responsible for nearly 40% of CO2 production, and with a city population of millions, even the best garbage collection services will fail.
