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Megacities, not nations, are the world’s dominant, enduring social structures

Megacities, not nations, are the world’s dominant, enduring social structures | Mr Tony's Geography Stuff | Scoop.it
From qz.com - April 20, 2016 11:42 PM
Cities are mankind’s most enduring and stable mode of social organization, outlasting all empires and nations over which they have presided. Today cities have become the world’s dominant demographic and economic clusters. As the sociologist Christopher Chase-Dunn has pointed out, it is not population or territorial size that drives world-city status, but economic weight
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This is a really interesting read to go along Parag Khanna's TED Talk on the same topic. I love the idea that nations could be suburbs of megacities. What a challenging concept to process?!
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Megacities Reflect Growing Urbanization Trend

From www.youtube.com - February 17, 2013 9:28 PM
Read the Transcript: http://to.pbs.org/b6sR86 The capital of the South Asian country Bangladesh, Dhaka, has a population that is booming. However, it stands ...
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This very sobering. I know it will surprise (and maybe disturb?) many of the kids I teach. 

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Jess Deady's curator insight, May 4, 2014 8:50 PM

To be a megacity like this, you have to conform to urbanization. There is no possible way to have such a populated and crowed city with farmlands around. This is a place of business yet residential areas, it also is where the marketplaces are and where kids go to school. Megacities need to be a part of an urban society in order for them to stay afloat.
Bec Seeto's curator insight, October 30, 2014 6:07 PM

This is a great introduction to the demographic explosion of the slums within megacities.  This is applicable to many themes within geography.   
Sarah Cannon's curator insight, December 14, 2015 10:20 AM

I can't image or even relate to the experience of living in a place like this. With rivers polluted right outside your house. And those rivers are what people bathe in and wash their clothes. I can't imagine not being able to access clean drinking water or lacking food. The people in Dhaka endure so much their whole lives, a good percentage of them will always live in poverty.
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Alarm bells toll for human civilization as world's 12th largest mega-city to run out of water in just 60 days

Alarm bells toll for human civilization as world's 12th largest mega-city to run out of water in just 60 days | Mr Tony's Geography Stuff | Scoop.it
From thewatchers.adorraeli.com - December 4, 2014 7:36 AM
The city of Sao Paulo is home to 20 million Brazilians, making it the 12th largest mega-city on a planet dominated by shortsighted humans. Shockingly, it has only 60 days of water supply remaining. The city "has about two months of guaranteed wa...
Tony Hall's insight:

This is just a little bit scary. While they don't mention it, I think Australia is moving into similar territory. Just a few years ago, the reservoir that supplies my hometown (amongst others) had fallen to 4% of its capacity. Luckily then rains came (eventually!) and things are ok for the time being. Until the next severe drought. I think this article hits the nail on the head when it makes the point that "Modern humans will not acknowledge reality until it slaps them hard in the face." There needs to be a very serious readjustment of how we use all resources, not just water. But we already knew that. Didn't we?

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