The State of the World Atlas [ff]. Dan Smith

      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