If the world’s population lived in one city

8/2/2019 If the worlds population lived in one city

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If the worlds population lived in onecityJanuary 18, 2011 byTim De Chant

http://persquaremile.com/2011/01/18/if-the-worlds-population-lived-in-one-city/

1. onFebruary 21, 2011 at 11:01 am|ReplySaskia Sassen

Dear Tim de Chant:this is great very telling. and the comments you got are fantastic, many othergood projects in there.
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We at http://www.UrbanAge.net have also constructed diverse visualizations ofdensity taking some ten major cities around the world. Aim different from yours,but connected: what are the different pop to surface density profiles.

saskia sassen

http://www.saskiasassen.com

2. onJune 13, 2011 at 12:02 pm|ReplySean

I would be interested to know (and see corresponding maps of) how muchagricultural land is required to feed 6.9 billion people at the densities listedabove?

3. on June 14, 2011 at 8:56 pm | Reply Cmo sera una ciudad que albergase atoda la poblacion mundial? [Veredicto: grande] |

[...] Sera esencial disponer de edificios de gran altura para albergar a toda lapoblacin mundial en vertical pues en Texas tocaramos a menos de 10centmetros cuadrados de suelo por cabeza. [Per Square Mile] [...]

4. onJune 15, 2011 at 3:19 am|Replyquikboy

Hey, its nice to see Houston get a mention. You even used Texas in most of themaps :^)

Yes, its true, Houston is by far not the densest city in the USA (even if we arethe 4th largest in America), but there are other things to consider that mightmake more Houston denser than you think. Living here, Ive noticed that:

a) Bayous and parks Houston is known as the Bayou City because weve gotlots of bayous and resoviors. We also pride ourselves on our many city andcounty parks, as well as parks from local subdivisions. Those take up a heavychunk of land I think, and its not viable to count that in the calculations sincepeople dont normally live on those.

b) Population count Compared to the other cities on the list, Houston has alarge influx of illegal immigrants. I dont want to draw up a debate, but thats thereality.You can probably figure out from where. Due to fears that they might getdeported (even if US Census doesnt report them to ICE), many choose not toparticipate in the census. As a result, you see less people living in a large city.

c) Cities with land constraints New York City and San Francisco are mostlyisland based, while Singapore itself is an island. They couldnt spread out if theywanted to. Houston can expand as far north, west, and south as much as itdlike. Which comes to another issue.

d) Age of the cities Houston is practically the youngest on the list. Before cars,it was very convenient and practical to build dense (See London and Paris). Withthe coming of the stagecoach and car however,buildings could afford to be less

dense. The outlying suburbs of Houston became an actual part of the city giventhe citys boom period. They werent developed as part of the city in advance. Ifyou check out Houstons history, there has been many times the city hasincorporated different communites and towns into the Houston ETJ(extraterritorial jurisdiction). Another reason why we seem so spread out.

e) Real estate boom As we all known, Houston is very subu rby. Its not crazyto notice that every house does take up quite a chunk of land, and if you tookinto account that not every house was occupied, thatd show furtherconcentration.
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I can keep going on and on, but the point being is that we can compare bits ofinfo based on data we have, but to truly know how dense a city is, I think weshould have better iinformation on true population counts, and then base it onland thats actually developed and inhabited.

5. onJune 29, 2011 at 11:20 am|ReplyCee Farris

How about ten supercities per continent? For the US that would be ten cities of30 million a piece. You would stick them near sources of abundant water (thecoasts) and away from farmland. Those on the southern coastlines could getelectricity from solar power, while those in the Northeast and Pacific Northwestcould use wind and tidal. Rail systems would link the pop centers and newneighborhoods would be built around light rail stations. I would build the supercities on the structure of existing cities and dismantle what cities you didntneed, especially those in hurricane, drought and earthquake zones. Places likeSeattle, Houston, Mobile,Tampa Bay, Savanna, Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, NewYork and Boston make sense. All others would not. Cities that large would berun more like states and the mayors resembling governors.

One problem is that food production in keeping with the low impact philosophywould need to be lots of small organic farms, maximizing their local crops. You

couldnt grow lettuce in the desert anymore. How much land would you need tofeed ten supercities of 30 million each if you only used small o rganic farms? Imguessing a 5 acre farm could feed 1000 people. So at just under 2400 milesDelaware would do nicely. Of course you couldnt put this all in the same placeas crop requirements differ and you want to minimize food transport costs so Iwould have a ring of 2400 sq miles around each city to provide food.Alternatively, you could have farming/open space areas within each city. NewJersey could be the garden State again!

Each supercity would be the size of Connecticut (5,500 square miles) I usedNYCs density, but without any suburbs.

6. onJuly 10, 2011 at 9:24 pm|ReplyMauricio Huaco

Dear Tim,

Thanks for such an inspiring contribution!I have done something similiar by calculating how much space would it berequiered in four different scenarios; from 1, 10, 100 and 1,000 sq mt (squaremeters, not miles) per person.

As it will be understood, alloting the minimun space is quite absurd, but it makesome sense when comparing it with other spatial units.

The first one is a 1 sq mt/per, just enough to stand alone, while 10 sq mt is justenough as a vital space for basic living. (sleep, cook and shower). A 100 sq mtspatial-unit might be more representative while including enough space for avegetable garden and minimun public space (United States and Curitibas urbangreen space is about 50 sq mt/per) The last one includes industrial, natural andinfrastructural land requiered to produce large scale goods.

Based on my own region and country geographic size just for comparisonresons, some of my students end very surprised. Anyhow, I would like to keeplooking on this figures.

Regarding footprint estimations, I have found it very difficult to calculate in urbanscale, while it is more easy in regional / national scales. Still, a nice researchchallenge for us.

Nice to hear comments from Saskia Sassen.
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7. onJuly 24, 2011 at 8:50 pm|ReplyCameron Murray

Interesting. But doesnt really say a lot about how much land is required withexisting technology to feed clothe and shelter these people.

Its just like saying If all the residents of a city stood really close together theycould all fit in one football stadium. Thats true. But if they all were crammedinto the stadium and you took away the rest of the city, they wouldnt last long.

The most interesting thing for m e is that Paris is the mos t dense city used for thecomparison.
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If the world’s population lived in one city