“In 1800 less than 3% of the world lived in cities. Most people lived their entire lives without ever seeing one
In 1900, 150 million people lived in the world’s cities. That number has now surged past 3 million and last year crossed another tipping point: more than half the people on Earth now live in cities. By 2050—it will be more than 2/3 of us. Humans are now an urban species, cramming into vast urban agglomerations.”
192021.org [192021.org]
192021.org is an interesting site. An organization dedicated to dealing will all aspects of the urbanization of the human population of the Earth. It is mind boggling to think that more than 3 billion people live in cities—more than half the worlds population lives in cities.
I live in Singapore, one of the cities that 192021.org notes will have more than 20 million people living in it sometime in the 21st century—that is assuming that global warming does not cause the ocean to rise an wipe Singapore off the map completely. But I grew up on the very outskirts of the suburbs of a very small city, less than 40 thousand people! I enjoyed, still enjoy, wide open spaces, trees, mountains, fields of green growing things, the singing of bugs at night and birds in the day. I hope to be able to return to wide open spaces one day. I don’t want to call 20 million people neighbor.