21ST CENTURY MEGA-CITIES

The world's mega-cities are merging to form vast mega-regions, which may stretch hundreds of kilometers and be home to more than 100 million people. The good part is that these cities create wealth.  The bad part is that it comes with significant income inequality as well as enormous congestion problems that cause constraints on the economy and GDP.


The largest of these is the Hong Kong-Shenhzen-Guangzhou region in China, home to about 120 million people. In Japan the region of Nagoya-Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe is expected to swell to 60 million in population by 2015 and in Brazil, the Rio de Janeiro-São Paulo region has around 43 million inhabitants.  This trend reached a tipping point recently and today more than 50% of people around the world live in urban places.  It is expected that by 2050 over 70% or the world population will be made up of urban dwellers. By then, only 14% of people in wealthy countries will live outside cities and 33% in the developing world. Wow!
The development of mega-regions is actually a good thing.  The mega-regions, rather than countries, are now driving wealth. Research shows that the world's largest 40 mega-regions cover only a tiny fraction of the habitable surface of the planet, but account for 66% of all economic activity and about 85% of technological and scientific innovation. All in all, the top 25 cities in the world account for more than half of the world's wealth.
The flip side is that the growth of mega-regions and mega-cities also leads to unprecedented levels of unbalanced development and income inequalities as more and more people move to satellite cities. Cities like Los Angeles grew 45% in numbers between 1975-1990, but tripled their surface area in the same time. New York City in the USA has emerged as one unequal society having the marginalization and segregation of specific groups in the City creating a city within a city. The richest 1% of households in NYC now earns more than 72 times the average income of the poorest 20% of the population. That results in that poor families are segregated and are lacking access to quality education, security, work and political power.
Another huge problem is transportation. More people and the lack of, or outgrown infrastructure is not a good combination and leads to wasteful congestion and energy consumption as well as reduced economic growth. 
So to deal with this issue, I suggest the following ideas to decrease congestion and increase access to the city.  Mayor Bloomberg in NYC is welcome to contact me if he wishes.

• Introduce Bus Rapid Transit in all mega cities for mega improvement of congestion. That is a system based on longer articulated buses fitted. Many of them fitted with hybrid technology.  
• All public transport should be free for everyone. Collective passenger transport buses can ensure a viable safe and environmentally-friendly alternative to the private car. Therefore, their fundamental role should be recognised, for solving congestion problems. 
• To solve urban delivery problems such as dimensions for parking facilities, sign-posting, periods for loading and unloading and enforcementt have to be improved.
•  Make use of the subway rail system for outgoing management of waste, and incoming for goods.
• Do not allow over-sized trucks to enter the cities. Build centres around the cities for loading and unloading goods.
• Do not allow cars in the inner city.
• Increase city access taxes for cars, not for touring coaches and taxis That is counterproductive to any measure aimed at solving congestion problems in inner cities
• Introduce the SEGWAY concept. Re-distribute the road network and make some of it to bicycle roads for bikers and SEGWAYS.