Читать книгу The State of the World Atlas [ff] - Dan Smith - Страница 35

Diversity of Cities

The diversity of cities is as great as the diversity

of the world. They hold, display, and generate

great wealth – and equally great poverty. They

are places of danger, and equally of

opportunity, as continued urban migration

shows. Worldwide, just under a billion people

are believed to live in slums, almost one-third of

the urban population.

• Mexico City sits on a

drained lake-bed of

saturated clay that is

subsiding as it continues

to dry: in 100 years, parts

of the city have sunk

about 9 metres.

• Its metro system is the

world’s fourth largest and

cheapest to use.

Mexico City

Comparative wealth of city dwellers

Number of hours someone needed to work

for the average city wage in order to buy

an iPod Nano (8GB version) in 2009

New York

9 hours

Tokyo

12 hours

London

11 hours

Paris

15 hours

• About 45% of New

Yorkers speak a

language other than

English at home.

• The urban legend of

alligators in Manhattan

sewers grew in the

1960s based on a

colourful account

by a retired

city official.

New York

• More than 300 languages are

spoken in London.

• It has the world’s oldest and

second most extensive

underground railway network.

• 20% of Parisians were

born outside France.

• The city receives 28 million

tourists a year, 17 million

from outside France.

London

Paris

• Lagos has no overall city

administration.

• The city population is

growing at the rate of

1 new person every

2 minutes.

Lagos

São Paulo

• “Sampa” is the

world’s largest Japanese

city outside Japan, the

largest Spanish city outside

Spain, the largest Lebanese

city outside Lebanon.

São Paulo

46.5 hours

Istanbul

56 hours

Shanghai

56.5 hours

Q 32 Urbanization

34