Megacities

There is a greater concentration of megacities in the Northern-Hemisphere. All but 5 megacities are located above the equator. The four megacities that don't follow this pattern are: Rio De Janeiro, Jakarta, Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires. Three of these megacities; Rio De Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires; are all in South-America. These megacities are on the east coast of Brazil and Argentina. Unlike the other megacities, Jakarta is in Indonesia, Asia. There are 26 megacities above the equator, in the Northern-Hemisphere. 14 of these megacities are in Asia, 3 in Europe, 1 in Africa, 3 in North America and 3 in North-America. The fourteen megacities in Asia are: Istanbul (Turkey), Karachi (Pakistan), Mumbai (India), New Delhi (India), Dhaka (Bangladesh), Kolkata (Bangladesh), Guangzhou (China), Shanghai (China), Seoul (South Korea), Osaka (Japan), Tokyo (Japan), Manila (Philippines), Tehran (Iran). The three megacities in Europe are: Moscow (Russia), Paris (France), London (England). The megacities in the Northern Hemisphere in Africa are: Cairo (Egypt), Lagos (Nigeria). The three megacities in North America are Los Angeles (USA), New York City (USA) and Mexico City (Mexico).

1) The spatial global pattern of megacities is periphery. Seven megacities are in the Western Hemisphere and the rest are in the Eastern Hemisphere. Nine megacities lie in the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer. Russia (Moscow), England (London), and Turkey (Istanbul) are the three megacities in Europe and Moscow and London are the only land-locked megacities globally. Asia contains the most megacities in comparison to other continents with 12 megacities. Two megacities lie in India (New Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata), one megacity lie in Bangladesh (Dhaka), China has two megacities (Guangzhou and Shanghai), Japan has two megacities (Osaka and Tokyo), South Korea has one megacity (Seoul), The Phillipines' has one mega city (Manila), Indonesia's has one megacity (Jakarta), Iran has one megacity (Tehran) and Pakistan has one megacity (Karachi). North America has three megacities, two in U.S.A (New York and Los Angeles) and one in Mexico (Mexico City). South America also has three megacities, two in Brazil (Rio De Janeiro and Sao Paulo) and one in Argentina (Buenos Aires). Lastly, Africa has two megacities in Egypt (Cairo) and Nigeria (Lagos). These megacities, apart from one outlier (Moscow, Russia), all follow a periphery pattern on their continent. Megacities tend to lie on the peripheral areas of land with access to the coast.

2) Outside of the peripheral pattern, there is a cluster in Asia. This cluster is inclusive to countries like Japan, China, India, Phillipines, Iran, Indonesia, and South Korea. The Asia cluster contains the top 5 populated megacities: Tokyo (Japan), Guangzhou (China), Seoul (South Korea), Delhi (India) and Mumbai (India). The majority of this cluster is on the south-east coast of Asia.

The peripheral pattern of megacities is a factor of access to the coast. Access to the coast has been significant since humans inhabitance. Water is a necessity to human survival and access to a source of water is essential for an efficient society. It also contains natural resources to assist survival, like seafood. Take Tokyo as an example; it was first settled in 3,500BC as a small fishing village as the Pacific Ocean was easily accessible. Also, it was easy to transport goods from Tokyo across the globe as there was plenty room for ports to be established. This discovery then inspired more settlements to be established to the coast, as inland settlements proved to be less efficient. London is one of the few exceptions from this pattern, but its access to the Thames river allows satisfactory water supply and transport for the megacity. Although they have limited food supply via water source, they have outstretching land for agriculture and expenditure for food supply from neighbouring coastal countries. Jakarta, Indonesia, is another example of how access to the coast contributes to the growth of megacities. Indonesia thrives off of its natural resources and crude palm oil harvesting ($17.9B USD), making most of its income off its exports. Having coastal access to this megacity allows money from exports to circulate through the city and therefore allowing it to grow to megacity status. Continuum of crude oil drilling allows sufficient income for the megacity to continue to grow and meet its economic needs. Rio De Janeiro also thrives off of crude petroleum exports, making $17B USD in 2022 alone.

Rural to Urban migration is a factor resulting in the cluster in Asia. The Valeriepieris circle heavily contributes to the pattern. The sub-pattern, concentrated cluster in Asia is subject to the Valeriepieris circle; the concept that there are more people living inside the circle than outside it, nearly 4 million people! The circle has a radius of 4,000km (6.7% of the Earths total land area), containing 21 nations like China, Mongolia, Japan, India, Nepal, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and many more. Ten of the worlds' megacities are inside this circle. The dense population in the circle is the reason why megacities occur because there are high concentrations of people in one area, enabling cities to form large populations easier than less dense populations and turn into megacities. The Valeriepieris circle is formed through the process of Rural to Urban Migration. There is nearly 1 billion urban inhabitants and 498 million rural inhabitants currently in China. Over the past 5 years, 50 million rural residents in China have transitioned to urban living, and its predicted this number will continue to grow. Rural residents in western-China commonly migrate to central/eastern China as there is higher education and higher job opportunity. In rural areas, they live on government land for free and work in the agriculture sector in return. They make no income as they live off government supply. In the urban areas, they would get paid for work and make an income. This income would mean they could own anything, not the government owning it for them. Education is sparse in western-China as most youth farm and gather with their parents. This causes megacities like Beijing and Shanghai to grow in population as more and more rural migrants move to urban areas. Shanghai has been growing at a rate of 10% for the past 20 years and its predicted to continue steadily until it becomes the 3rd richest city worldwide by 2025. An issue with this is that in the future, when rural populations come to a low, that the rural production will not be enough to supply and maintain urban areas. This will cause government action in repopulating rural areas with enough workers to hold up urban areas.

Megacities tend to be situated on the same longitude because of lateral spread. Lateral spread enabled settlers to domesticate crops and stock leading, megacities tending to be on the same horizontal plane across Euro-Asia. When colonisation occurred across Euro-Asia and through Africa, it was discovered crops that thrived in Europe couldn't survive under Africas conditions. This lead to an outwards span of urbanisation from Europe, across Asia, leaving Africa and Southern countries with low development rates. With the low development across Africa, megacities occurred far later than in Europe and Asia, leading Africa to only have two (smaller populated) megacities, Cairo and Lagos. The downside to horizontal expansion of megacities is the lack of area to expand. Megacities like Paris and London were once the largest in 1500, but due to lateral spread and its lack of spatial availability, they couldn't continue to grow. Paris could not maintain its population due to its rising cost of living and housing, becoming a push factor for 122,000 people over the past decade, which is still causing a great decline in Paris's population. London was urbanised early in comparison to the rest of the world and couldn't cater to its large population, so it lead to Europeans (mainly from Great Britain) to colonise further areas to spread its growing population. This is why countries like New Zealand and Australia don't have any megacities as their urbanisation occurred much later as a result of London breaching its population capacity.

Housing in megacities can affect its residents and impact them socially and economically. Socially, urban housing arrangements within megacities can unite communities; encourage connections, reduce mental illness, aid elderly, provide security & safety.

New York can be isolating by its living arrangements. 22,200,000 people live in New York, majority in high-rise buildings in the central city. These rooms are usually studios which can only contain one person. These studios are more affordable for new arrivals and elderly, which is negative within society. Elderly are more likely to die alone or lack assistance in emergencies and new-comers feel overwhelmed in the big city, without social connections. On the other hand, Mumbai (India) contains the largest slum, Dharavi, with over 1 million people within 2.39 square kilometres. Dwellings contain roughly 20 people, crammed into a small apartment, sharing living necessities. This forces its inhabitants to work in unity, in order to have effective living in their confined quarters. This unity is felt throughout the slum, as a million people bond to get by. Dharavi rewards its long-time inhabitants by moving them up in the housing hierarchy; the longer a person or family remain in the slum, their dwelling gets upgraded to the central areas of Dharavi and conditions are better than the outskirts.

However, Dharavi housing and infrastructure can be also be negative to the health of its inhabitants. There are no functioning, flushing toilets in Dharavi, so people seek other, less hygienic alternatives. The mass of bodily excretions on the streets exposes its people to diseases and is a common spreader of illness. The sewage is also open and is only 30cm below street level, running through the whole city without proper removal. The runoff sewage runs directly into the laundry quarters, where its workers stand inside and wash clothes in. The unhygienic, overcrowded megacity proved to be a worry during the COVID-19 outbreak. The first case was reported in April of 2020, in a dwelling of 12 people. The victim died within the first 4 days of contracting the virus because of his weakened immune system. This was the same for many inhabitants of Dharavi, 491 people died from the virus within the two year span. It took 23 months for the case numbers to hit 0. Housing in Dharavi also have limited supply of water. Water is limited to 2 hours running time per day, with one tap to be shared within 12 dwellings. There is no running, clean water to Dharavi for the remaining hours of the day. When the water runs out within the dwelling, dehydration becomes a threat. Dharavi is especially vulnerable to dehydration as frequently has heat waves. Past recorded droughts in 2016 left 300,000 people of Dharavi suffering from dehydration, nearly a third of the whole population! With scarce healthcare, heatwaves become hard to combat. New York combats this issue as they are more developed than Mumbai. New York spends an average of $163 billion USD per year in its healthcare sector, enabling its people to avoid masses of sickness and diseases. New York itself is more sanitary compared to Dharavi, Mumbai. Sewage from every building is piped into contained, underground sewage disposal, restricting its affects on peoples health. However, the major body of water on the east side of New York, the Hudson River, is not safe to swim in or ingest. The Hudson River was used as a major transportation way during the industrial revolution; this lead to factories tending to be neighbouring the river as shipments were made easier that way. In 1977, it was discovered that 1.3 million pounds of PCB's (polychlorinated biphenyls) were discarded in the Hudson River, mixing with sediment in the river bed. PCB's bioaccumulate, meaning they increase in concentration as they move up the food chain. They impose a major threat on the people of New York City through the digestion of contaminated fish, causing low birth weight, immune system disorders and thyroid disease. Dredging of the river began in 2002 to remove PCB contaminated sediment, making slow progress over two decades.

Economically, the housing can range in price, even some being free - a positive to those who can't afford a proper house- which caters to each residents expenditure. In Dharavi, housing is free. Pavement dwellers are usually recent migrants to Mumbai, as they have no connections inside the slum and no money to buy proper housing outside of the slum. The living conditions are extremely poor, with extremely limited access to clean water and isolation. The only shelter provided is cardboard and tarps, leaving its inhabitants to succumb to the elements. As time passes, they are welcomed into the slum and eventually, if enough time passes, into the central area. Living is still free, the 'hierarchy' upgrades people. No bills are paid as electricity is scavenged off neighbouring power lines. The buildings themselves become more solid and provide more shelter and have electricity. In contrast to Dharavi, New York City is known for its extremely high housing prices, and high demand within the market to meet them. The average median rent is $4176 per month, with the average person making $4188 monthly. This leaves the average person with only $12 to spend on food, bills, clothing, transport and other necessities. This negatively impacts the citizens of New York City as it builds pressure not being able to make ends meet. In total, 8.3% of NYC citizens suffer from depression. Because of the rising cost of living, a large population of homeless occur in New York City. It was recorded over 68000 homeless people were sleeping in shelters during December of 2022, and even more sleeping on streets in the winter season. This negatively impacts their mental and physical health, weakening their immune system and damaging their self worth. Around 17% of the homeless population have depression.

Almost all megacities are affected negatively by air pollution. Air pollution is the contaminations of air from chemicals, burning fuels and other substances. Megacities are especially vulnerable to high levels of air pollution. This is majorly because of industry. Burning fuels like gasoline in factories and the use of gasoline fuelled machinery cause gases like benzene, toluene and xylenes. Human exposure to these gases can mutate cells and therefore cause cancer. Air pollution negatively impacts a persons social health and wellbeing and economically costs more money to prevent and cure the damages from air pollution. Depending on the type of cancer the person gets, it can take an average 150,000 to cure, which, in developing countries, is not available. Nearly 2 billion USD has been spent in New Delhi alone to reduce the lethal amount of PM2.5 (undetectable pollutant particles) in the air.

New Delhi suffers from deadly air pollution levels; It has been said to be the most dangerous city in the world in terms of air pollution. Studies have proved this is because of mass use of motor vehicles (producing benzene, toluene and xylenes), cow dung combustion (agriculture industry), burning agriculture land & garbage and dust. This has lead to an increase of premature births (currently at an average of 26,000 anually), respiratory infection and heart disease, impacting peoples health negatively in long term exposure. Especially in New Delhi, not everyone can afford the treatment of medicine to fix the impacts of air pollution. This leads to over 1.66 million deaths due to air pollution annually (2020).

In Moscow, Russia, the air pollution levels aren't nearly as bad as New Delhi. Moscow is relatively isolated from other megacities so it's a vital hub for production and trades. However, the air pollution conditions are good. The main pollutant, similar to New Delhi, is PM2.5, but is less concentrated. Motor vehicles make up only 10% of pollutants, far less than New Delhi, and the main pollutant comes from automobiles. This still only has minimal affects on the air quality, but car ownership is on the rise and this will therefore cause a large affect on air quality. Less than 5,000 premature deaths in Moscow have been recorded to be caused by air pollution. Russia's government achieves this by restricting automobile transportation around the city and providing other alternatives, like buses, to get around easier. They also have restricted major truck freight to reduce large vehicle emissions.

Surprisingly, an estimated 49,000 of Rio De Janeiro inhabitants die annually due to air pollution. 2.7 million motor vehicles drive on the roads of the megacity, making up 3/4 of the annual emissions that contribute to air pollution. Other contaminants are sourced from open fires, burning agriculture land and rubbish. The agriculture sector contributes heavily as well, as Brazil is a major provider of beans, bananas, corn, cocoa and rice. These are common ingredients in developed countries, all sources from Brazil, so growth cannot stop otherwise there will be a negative decline in Brazils economy. The Brazilian government has taken minimal action in nationwide standards being changed on cleaner and fuel efficient cars in order to curb dangerous toxin emissions.

Transport is a key element of connectivity within megacities and the outside world. Without efficient transport, it can have negative economic and social effects on its people.

Economically, it can cost governments billions of dollars to establish major transportation networks which would typically be a negative economic impact, but not for Tokyo. Tokyo is the largest megacity globally, with a population of over 37,000,000. Tokyo (Japan) transports over 40 million people (locals and tourists) through its rail systems daily, being used as the main source of transport throughout the city. Train terminals are rarely crowded and work in a systematic manor to enable fast and efficient movement. The 5.5 mile long, dense network cost Tokyo $2.2 billion USD in 2008 to build. This may seem like a negative economic impact as it cost so much, but in reality its saved money in the long run and reduced emissions via automobiles, minimising the damages done to people through air pollution. This is perfect for those who live on the outskirts of Tokyo, faring to work. Tokyo is also bustling with taxi services and buses, so transport for tourists who aren't familiar with tramline timetables can access transport with ease. Imports and exports are made easy by the Tokyo port, allowing trades to occur frequently and cheaper without extra truck freight costs that landlocked megacities would experience.

Lagos (Nigeria) has a pretty basic transportation method in comparison to Tokyo. The tramlines aren't functioning to the high level of Tokyo's system and are limited to only freight and cargo, not passengers. However this isn't that bad for Lagos, after all its a 'pretty walkable' city. Most locals bike to and from work. Also automobiles are used far more than in Tokyo. These cars are typically outdated and emit thousands of tons of harmful pollutants per year. Only 40% of cars in Lagos are registered, which isn't safe when there are thousands of them driving unregistered. This leads to severe crashes and fatalities, and also local police working overtime in attempts to find unregistered vehicles. In 2021, it was recorded that 101 people died on the roads of Lagos, while more than 600 others sustained serious injury. Since Lagos uprising of urbanisation, rural workers tend to commute into the city to transport goods much more than what the roads were designed to cater to. This causes a mass of traffic at peak hours of the day, 8am and 5pm, as people drive to and leave work. Its been studied that the average resident of Lagos spends 3 hours in traffic everyday! Because of Lagos's poor infrastructure as a result of unexpected growth, the only way to avoid the traffic is commuting on the same roads at earlier or later times. This is a negative economic impact as a consequence of traffic is being late to work, delayed exports/imports and an increase of repairs needed to overused roads. Similar to Tokyo, bus and taxi services are available, but are costly to tourists because of traffic.

Which impact is more significant? Air pollution is the most significant to people of megacities. The megacities' people cannot dictate how their goods are produced in factories and stop farming from using open fires, the big corporations do. It's all in the hands of their governments, whom have economic growth as their main concern. And after all the damage is done, its extremely hard to reduce the effects of air pollution on peoples health. It'll cost billions, even trillions, to cure the sickness and disease caused by air pollution and stabilise PM2.5 levels. And if efforts to minimise air pollution are not attempted by governments now, people (especially of under-developed countries) could possibly suffer consequences of: ban of automobiles (removes main source of transport), industrial/agricultural machinery (results in inefficient/labouring farming techniques), ban of open fires (lack of warmth & garbage disposal). Therefore air pollution outweighs the impacts of housing/infrastructure and transport on people.