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  #1  
Old Posted Nov 27, 2021, 8:24 AM
Manitopiaaa Manitopiaaa is offline
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Africa's Rising Cities: How Africa will become the center of the world’s urban future

A fascinating new piece of photojournalism and urban analysis from the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...africa-cities/
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  #2  
Old Posted Nov 27, 2021, 4:47 PM
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A 80 million people Lagos is inevitable.

Nigeria will reach 400 million inh. within 30 years. Lagos won’t be less than 50 million by then. Even if Nigerian population growing slowly during the second half of the century, they will reach at least 600 million people by 2100.
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  #3  
Old Posted Nov 27, 2021, 5:42 PM
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The African continent's population is supposed to quadruple by 2100 (under current projections, which are highly likely to change and be considerably slower), so yeah they'll probably take manufacturing away from South and South East Asia. Nice to see. Lots of Africa (including high growth regions such as Nigeria) are close to Europe without having to go through the Suez, which is a major bottleneck. They're also close to the other big growing region of South America and getting to North America shouldn't be hard either.
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Old Posted Nov 27, 2021, 7:56 PM
Obadno Obadno is offline
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The predictions for Africa are absurd, every developing nation has hit rapid birth declines after industrializing and Africa will do the same.

The problem with most of these crazy expectations for Africa are as follows:



or to sum up in a concept: Normalcy Bias.
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  #5  
Old Posted Nov 27, 2021, 8:57 PM
Dariusb Dariusb is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Yuri View Post
A 80 million people Lagos is inevitable.

Nigeria will reach 400 million inh. within 30 years. Lagos won’t be less than 50 million by then. Even if Nigerian population growing slowly during the second half of the century, they will reach at least 600 million people by 2100.
That's crazy! Is Nigeria a large country in land area?
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Old Posted Nov 27, 2021, 9:01 PM
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Originally Posted by Obadno View Post
The predictions for Africa are absurd, every developing nation has hit rapid birth declines after industrializing and Africa will do the same.

The problem with most of these crazy expectations for Africa are as follows:



or to sum up in a concept: Normalcy Bias.
Obviously Africa's population isn't going to quadruple (those are just projections and estimations), but it is going to increase substantially. I suspect easily passing 2 billion, but it's up in the air if they'll get close to 3 billion, probably not. We'll have to see how big they get but it's still pretty exciting.
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Old Posted Nov 27, 2021, 9:03 PM
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That's crazy! Is Nigeria a large country in land area?
Nigeria is a country in West Africa at the Gulf of Guinea. The land has a total area of 923,770 km² (356,669 mi²) and a total coastline of 853 km (530.0 mi). This land area is approximately 133% of the area of Texas. Nigeria is thus one of the largest countries in Africa and the 32nd biggest in the world.
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Old Posted Nov 27, 2021, 9:13 PM
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I honestly don't think - given the level of development/government competence - that the urban areas could grow to that level of density/size in most African nations. As the article alludes to, it's much more likely given the current trajectory Lagos has a general societal collapse than manages to become a stable megapolis with 80 million people.

That said, some will make the transition successfully, and they will likely draw more than their share of continental migrants.
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  #9  
Old Posted Nov 27, 2021, 10:40 PM
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I certainly hope the population growth in these places plummets soon, because nobody deserves to live in that kind of squalor.
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  #10  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2021, 3:57 PM
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A billion Indians have lived in squalor for decades. Africa will very likely triple in population. It is the second largest continent, and has a lot of room to grow. I suspect that Africa will be the largest source of immigrants for many countries in the future, including many formerly people-exporting countries in East Asia (despite massive opposition to such schemes, but when you have shrinking populations and millions of elderly citizens to support...).
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  #11  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2021, 4:48 PM
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I wouldn't say Africa has a lot of room to go. They are barely able sustain their populations now and will require a lot more space and resources to sustain 2x to 3x as many people. Nigeria is fairly good size (similar to ON in land area) but given the fact it could hit 400 million, it's really not that big. Much of the arable land in the US (10x Nigeria) is used to support a smaller population.
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  #12  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2021, 4:49 PM
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The growth will tail off. Africa is rapidly secularizing, birth control is finally near-universal, outmigration to Europe, the Gulf States and the Americas is booming.

Also, megacities just start to hit a wall, even first world megacities with good infrastructure. LA is now barely growing. Mexico City went from 2 million to 20 million in 30 years and then basically stopped. Jakarta, which has terrible infrastructure, has slowed down to minimal growth.
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Old Posted Nov 29, 2021, 5:04 PM
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Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
Mexico City went from 2 million to 20 million in 30 years and then basically stopped.
i remember reading a national geographic article on Mexico City as a kid back in the '80s when it was exploding with growth and the prediction in the article was something silly like "expected to grow to over 40M by the middle of next century".

swing and a miss.
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Old Posted Nov 29, 2021, 5:34 PM
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Right, I believe Mexico City had the fastest growth of any urban center in recorded history during the 1960's and 1970's, and people were projecting a colossal megacity, multiples bigger than other megacities.

But it seemed the growth hit a wall, and then residents started migrating to cheaper satellite metros a few hours away, like Queretaro and Leon.

And Mexico City has decent transit infrastructure. An extensive Metro system, a pretty good freeway system, and fairly proactive urban planning nowadays. But the city is just waaaay too big, right now. You have a traditional downtown core that might be the size of Milwaukee's core, and then wave after wave of new town centers, until growth stopped at the mountains ringing the Valley of Mexico. The whole city is sinking, and water delivery is a huge issue, as the aquifers are mostly drained.
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  #15  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2021, 5:42 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post
A billion Indians have lived in squalor for decades. Africa will very likely triple in population. It is the second largest continent, and has a lot of room to grow. I suspect that Africa will be the largest source of immigrants for many countries in the future, including many formerly people-exporting countries in East Asia (despite massive opposition to such schemes, but when you have shrinking populations and millions of elderly citizens to support...).
I have no doubt that it's possible that continent-wide populations grow to that extent (provided the arable land can support enough people). But I see no reason to presume that urbanization will also continue at the same rate. It may just be that rural areas and smaller cities have very high population densities.
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  #16  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2021, 5:48 PM
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Originally Posted by Obadno View Post
The predictions for Africa are absurd, every developing nation has hit rapid birth declines after industrializing and Africa will do the same.

The problem with most of these crazy expectations for Africa are as follows:



or to sum up in a concept: Normalcy Bias.
Since 1970, India has tripled in population and China has almost tripled. Nigeria doubling in 30 years doesn't seem that extraordinary.
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  #17  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2021, 6:47 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
The growth will tail off. Africa is rapidly secularizing, birth control is finally near-universal, outmigration to Europe, the Gulf States and the Americas is booming.

Also, megacities just start to hit a wall, even first world megacities with good infrastructure. LA is now barely growing. Mexico City went from 2 million to 20 million in 30 years and then basically stopped. Jakarta, which has terrible infrastructure, has slowed down to minimal growth.
But once again, primary cities are growing faster or almost as fast as their countries: London, Moscow, Tokyo, Toronto (and New York converging).

If Nigeria grows, Lagos will do it and probably faster, as there are plenty of rural folks there.

P.S. Mexico City growth was spectacular, but it's not like that: they had reached 3 million by 1950 and 18 million by 2000. São Paulo has actually grew considerably faster, from 2 million in 1950 to 18 million in 2000. Mexico City, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, as national capitals, started to grow from a much higher base.


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Originally Posted by iheartthed View Post
Since 1970, India has tripled in population and China has almost tripled. Nigeria doubling in 30 years doesn't seem that extraordinary.
That's the point: Nigeria reaching 400 million by 2050 is a given even if their TFR reaches South Korean levels in the next 10 years (which is not going to happen). Their population is very young and there are millions and millions of women on child bearing age to keep population growing even if they have few children.

Almost 7 million babies are born yearly in Nigeria as opposed to 3.6 million in the US or 2.7 million in Brazil. Within 20 years all those babies will have grown and will start to have their own babies.
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  #18  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2021, 7:00 PM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
i remember reading a national geographic article on Mexico City as a kid back in the '80s when it was exploding with growth and the prediction in the article was something silly like "expected to grow to over 40M by the middle of next century".

swing and a miss.
Mexico City no, but Central Valley (Mexico City and neighbouring metro areas) will definitely reach 40 million people by 2050.

Mexican growth fell, but they still have a young population and as migration to the US virtually stopped, they have good demographic years ahead. Brazil, for instance, will start declining at least 15 years before Mexico.
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Old Posted Nov 29, 2021, 7:00 PM
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The article is interesting re: the situation and challenges of each city, but it's not written by experts in demographics or urban development. The former has some apples-oranges and the latter isn't really covered. For starters, won't they need to build to accomplish those residential density figures?
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Old Posted Nov 29, 2021, 7:01 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
The growth will tail off. Africa is rapidly secularizing, birth control is finally near-universal, outmigration to Europe, the Gulf States and the Americas is booming.

Also, megacities just start to hit a wall, even first world megacities with good infrastructure. LA is now barely growing. Mexico City went from 2 million to 20 million in 30 years and then basically stopped. Jakarta, which has terrible infrastructure, has slowed down to minimal growth.
Some African countries are moving in that direction and I can see this occurring in places like Ghana, Botswana, Gabon and South Africa but not so much in others like Nigeria (despite large economy and natural resources), Malawi or Liberia.
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