Why many Asian megacities are miserable places

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. FOR SEVEN decades Tokyo was considered the world’s most populous city. That was 15 years too long, according to data released last month by the UN.

Until recently the organisation’s statisticians accepted national governments’ definitions of where their cities began and ended; their latest report accepts the reality of urban sprawl. By their new measures, Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, jumps to the top of the board with 42m people, about as many as Canada. Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, with 37m, has also pulled ahead of Tokyo, with 33m.

Delhi and Shanghai, with around 30m people each, fill out the top five. The UN’s latest figures highlight tremendous urbanisation. These days 45% of humanity lives in cities (with at least 50,000 people); another 36% inhabit towns (with at least 5,000).

The data also show that much of the growth is happening in middle-income Asia. Only one of the world’s ten biggest cities lies outside that continent. And only seven of the world’s 33 “megacities" (boasting over 10m people) are in rich countries.

By 2050 Jakarta and Dhaka will between them add another 25m people, nearly as many as live in Australia. These migrations should help make people better off. “Dhaka changed my life and secured my kids’ education," says Clinton Chakma, who found a job as a waiter after migrating from a farm in 2022.

Yet there is also a huge risk: that as Asia’s cities expand, squalor, pollution and gridlock increasingly undercut the economic boost they provide. “People move to cities to be part of the labour market," says Alain Bertaud of New York University. But if the labour market does not work “you build a poverty trap".