the.com/megacity
A city so big it needs its own weather and no longer needs a country.
means An urban area with a population of ten million or more, typically formed when a city's sprawl swallows its suburbs and neighboring towns whole.
from A straightforward 20th-century compound: the Greek-derived prefix 'mega-' (meaning 'great' or 'large,' from megas) bolted onto 'city.' Demographers and urban planners started using it as cities like Tokyo and Mexico City blew past population milestones no one had needed a word for before — so they just built one, brick by Greek brick.
- the threshold
- usually defined as 10 million plus residents
- tokyo leads
- greater tokyo holds around 37 million people
- growth driver
- most new megacities now rise in asia and africa
- hidden cost
- traffic and slums often grow faster than infrastructure