The advent of megacities

Following is an interview with Dr. Janice Perlman, founder, and president of mega-cities project, Inc. Her organization attempts to make cities worldwide more livable places by taking good ideas from one place and trying to make them work in another.
Q. How do you define “megacity”?
A. We define megacities in our work as cities that have reached populations of 10 million or more. The majority of these are in developing countries. Migration to the city is the route for many people to greater choice, opportunity, and well-being. By coming to settle in the city, they have effect “voted with their feet.”
Q. Why are these places going to be very important in the next hundred years?
A. The 21st century won’t be the century of rural areas and small towns but of giant cities that will set the standard of how we live, how our environment is preserved (or not preserved), how our economies work, and what kind of civil society we develop.
Q. Do megacities in the developed and developing world differ, or are they linked by certain similarities?
A. these large cities have a lot more in common with each other than they do with the small town and villages in their own countries. For example, every megacity struggles with a widening gap between rich and poor. Every “first-world” city, such as Los Angeles, New York, London, or Tokyo, has within it a “third-world” city of poverty and deprivation. And every third-world city, such as Calcutta, Cairo, or Mexico City, has within it a first-world city of high culture, technology, fashion, and finance.
In addition, all megacities share the problems of providing jobs and economic opportunities and making housing, education, and health care available. They deal with crime and violence, as well as basic infrastructures such as water, sanitation, and public transportation. This is no easy task. The leaders of these cities recognize that they have similar problems, and they would like to learn more from other cities, particularly about successful solutions. If we are going to create livable cities for the next century, we will need to be clever enough to do it through collaboration and cooperation. That is why the Mega-Cities project works to share experiences that work across boundaries of culture and geography.
Q. Is the solution to urban problems strict central planning?
A. Absolutely not. we need decentralized planning that includes local citizens. In my view, attempts to create planned cities or communities-like Brasilia or Chandigarh- are too sterile and miss the spontaneity of cities that grew organically, like Rio de Janeiro, Bombay, or even New York City. The best example of urban planning I’ve seen recently is in Curitiba, Brazil, which set up a brilliant public transportation system in anticipation of population growth. The historic areas of cities like Siena, Paris, or Barcelona all have elements of planning that led to buildings of similar heights and architecture, but they were not centrally planned. There is a lot of diversity within the design, and people love to go to those cities. Megacities are really very exciting places. The truth is, I’ve never met a megacity that I didn’t like!