Two-Thirds of People to Live in Cities by 2050 as Asia, Africa Drive Urbanization, UN Says

Xu Wei

(Yicai Global) May 18 — Two-thirds of the world population will live in cities by 2050, with urban residence rising the fastest in India, China, and Nigeria, according to United Nations data.

The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs expects urban populations to grow to 6.7 billion residents worldwide, up 55 percent (2.5 billion) over the next three decades, it said in the 2018 revision of the World Urbanization Prospects report, published on May 16.

Forecasts see India, China, and Nigeria making up more than a third of the total increase, with the urban populace in the Asian sub-continental nation expanding by more than 416 million residents. The DESA predicts 255 million more urban dwellers in China and 189 million more in Africa’s most-populous country.

Nearly 90 percent of people born or moving to the city between now and 2050 will be from Asia or Africa, the report added.

Tokyo is currently the world’s most-populous city, with over 37 million inhabitants. But the DESA believes Japan’s population will decline to leave New Delhi as the biggest city by resident numbers around 2028.

Shanghai is currently the third-largest city with its 26 million residents, but planned late last year to cap permanent residence at 25 million by 2035, a move experts see as unfeasible. Beijing had earlier planned to cap its population at 23 million by 2030.

“Curbing the population is unimaginable, and it’s also detrimental,” South China Morning Post quoted Chen Youhua, a sociologist and professor at Nanjing University, as saying in December. “It will ruin a city’s development prospects, even in Shanghai. Controlling the population in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai is more of a political decision.”

Editors: Emmi Laine, James Boynton