Stage 5 Changing Places

Patrick assesses the future of world order, state sovereignty, and multilateral cooperation.

The 21st century is the dawn of a new era in human history: more people on Earth live in cities than in the countryside.  The impacts of this new basic fact are far-reaching.  One of those is that cities that are in particular environments are more prone to certain natural disasters and will be increasingly vulnerable as their populations increase (especially megacities in the developing world).

A promotional video shows planned development of a state-level development zone by government of Lanzhou, a provincial capital in China's arid northwest...

The Lanzhou province is lightly populated mainly due to it's semi-arid climate and rugged topography.  The goal is make a 500 square mile area (currently with 100,000 people) into a city with over 1 million people by 2030.  To make this new metropolis, developers are planning to literally remove mountains to create a more 'ideal' urban environment.  This makes some of the most ambitious environmental modification projects seem tame.  For more read, the accompanying article from the Guardian.  

Questions to Ponder: What potential environmental impacts come from this scale of modification?  How will this massive influx of the population impact the region?  Could this type of project happen in other part of the world? 

Tags: environment, urban ecology, planning, environment modify, China.