Megacities and the Urban Future

Megacities and the Urban Future
Presented by Mr. Douglas Batson, Human Geographer, Department of Defense

For the first time since the Tower of Babel, planet earth is again majority urban. With 200,000 people daily migrating to urban areas, turbo-urbanization will soon crowd two-thirds of humanity into cities; many are megacities with teeming populations of over 20 million. Slums in megacities of the Global South reflect the most gritty form of poverty, urban poverty, marked by a lack of clean water, sanitation, education, health care, and formal housing and jobs. The literature on megacities points to environmental sustainability as the top concern about future megacity growth. However, the human dimension of megacity growth offers two unheralded dimensions for Christian mission: land tenure and disaster management.