Tags: Meacities Urbanisation Urban systems Infrastructure Urban expansions

The rationale for studying urban systems and phenomena is varied and compelling. Urban activity is among the most significant of the Earth’s land-uses. Cities host vast amounts of the world’s built and technical infrastructure, they have served among the most important engines of land cover change through history, and they are significant sources of anthropogenic contributions to the Earth’s climactic systems. Cities also serve as hubs of human activity: they provide the ambient human infrastructure for much of the world’s social, economic, and cultural systems, as well as providing the substrate that houses the majority of the world’s population. Urban systems are still growing in extent and volume throughout the world. In many areas, the pace of urban expansion is actually accelerating, sometimes at unprecedented rates. This is particularly true in the world’s megacities: unified urban agglomerations with populations of at least ten million inhabitants. It is here, in megacities, that the greatest engines of the world’s urban activity—and all of its associated problems and promise—are to be found.

Modeling-megacity-futures.pdf