Pandemics In The New World Of Mega Cities

April 6, 2020,

Decades ago, well-designed gated communities, planned out urban revival and city styled villages where virtually everything is within walking distance, were the desirable brain child of the future.

For the most part they worked. Very well.

Until the population of the earth began to explode.

According to worldometers.info, “Population in the world is currently (2020) growing at a rate of around 1.05% per year. The current average population increase is estimated at 81 million people per year.

Annual growth rate reached its peak in the late 1960s, when it was at around 2%. The rate of increase has nearly halved since then, and will continue to decline in the coming years.

World population has doubled (100% increase) in 40 years from 1959 (3 billion) to 1999 (6 billion). It is now estimated that it will take another nearly 40 years to increase by another 50% to become 9 billion by 2037.

The latest world population projections indicate that world population will reach 10 billion persons in the year 2057.”

In the Sacramento and San Francisco Bay Area, where many of our associates reside, every day when we walk or drive somewhere to do business or socialize, we see once 1-2 story dwellings being demolished to make room for large condo and apartment complexes that extend at least five floors or much more and are at least an entire block long.

Especially in San Francisco.

Sacramento is starting to look like a completely different city with her spurt in new condo communities.

With the world’s surging population, it is no surprise that this urbanization sprawl is trending.

Trending towards what?

A Mega City.

A megacity is a very large city, typically with a population of more than 10 million people.

For almost five hundred years, Rome was the largest, wealthiest, and most politically important city in Europe.

Its population passed one million people by the end of the 1st century BC.

Precise definitions regarding today’s Mega Cities vary: the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs in its 2018 “World Urbanization Prospects” report counted urban agglomerations having over 10 million inhabitants.

The total number of megacities in the world is varied: 33 according to the UN, 37 according to CityPopulation.de, and 38 according to Demographia.

Many of these urban agglomerations are in China and India.

Remember where research indicates the Coronavirus started?

In terms of urban planning and population growth, China is emerging as a major metropolis.

Shanghai is one of the four municipalities under the direct administration of the central government of the People’s Republic of China, the largest city in China by population, and the second most populous city proper in the world, with a population of 24.18 million as of 2017.

Yes, you read that right. Over 24,000,000 people in the city proper. That is hard to wrap our brains around.

Located in the Yangtze River Delta, it sits on the south edge of the estuary of the Yangtze in the middle portion of the West China coast. The municipality borders the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the south, east and west, and is bound to the east by the East China Sea.

Shanghai has been described as the “showpiece” of the booming economy of mainland China; renowned for its Lujiazui skyline, museums and historic buildings.

As reported by worlddata.info, here are the world’s largest megacities.

Which brings us to a major weakness of the Mega City.

A new virus.

The spread of new viruses that can turn into pandemics.

Back in 2011, perhaps we should have studied this film a little more closely.

Contagion is a 2011 American thriller film directed by Steven Soderbergh.

Its ensemble cast includes Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Ehle, and Sanaa Lathan.

The plot concerns the spread of a virus transmitted by fomites, attempts by medical researchers and public health officials to identify and contain the disease, the loss of social order in a pandemic, and the introduction of a vaccine to halt its spread.

Mr. Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns discussed a film depicting the rapid spread of a virus, inspired by pandemics such as the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak and the 2009 flu pandemic.

Mr. Burns consulted with representatives of the World Health Organization as well as medical experts such as W. Ian Lipkin and Lawrence “Larry” Brilliant. Principal photography started in Hong Kong in September 2010, and continued in Chicago, Atlanta, London, Geneva, and San Francisco until February 2011.

Very global.

Commercially, the film made $135 million against its $60 million production budget. It was praised by critics for its narrative and the performances. It was also well received by scientists, who lauded its accuracy.

As you might guess, the film received renewed popularity during the recent Coronavirus pandemic.

We watched it again and again ourselves.

What we liked about it was that it was void of the over the top characters that we have seen in other pandemic films where there are villains, heroines and eccentric heroes, complete with a love story thrown in.

Yawn.

Contagion was the real deal with people acting very real and really afraid.

It scared us too.

In 2018, the bright team at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health appeared to see the Coronavirus pandemic coming.

Here is what they wrote on January 30, 2018, “If humanity is lucky, the next flu virus with pandemic potential will unfold somewhere quick to catch and contain the threat—a country with a strong public health service and well-stocked hospitals.”

Incredible.

Here this information was available all along and how many major civilizations experienced massive shortages of masks, personal protection equipment, breathing ventilators and the like?

Unbelievable. Listen to this.

They continue, “If we’re unlucky, a novel, lethal and highly infectious flu virus will break out in a crowded, unprepared megacity that lacks public health infrastructure. A fast-moving virus could burst from a city and catch a ride with international travelers before public health officials realize what is happening.”

Sound Coronavirus familiar?

Well, welcome to the world of the Mega City.

When the world’s population is increasing by over 80 million a year, they have to live somewhere.

Sheltering in.

Social distancing.

Practicing safe sex? How about practicing safe socializing.

Mega Cites demand that we do.

~ ~ ~

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https://www.worlddata.info/megacities.php

https://drexel.edu/dornsife/news/in-the-media/2020/March/Megacities-that-Spread-Pandemics/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contagion_(2011_film)

https://www.globalhealthnow.org/2018-01/pandemic-everyone-fears

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