Friday, July 10, 2009

10 Potentially Deadly Yet Strangly Beautiful Mega Metros

Image of Mexico City via Fairfield University

Here's an article I worked on for quite some time and that taught me a lot, for example about the types of issues big cities have to deal with like

  • air pollution
  • chemicals
  • crime
  • industry
  • murder
  • natural disasters
  • nuclear waste
  • sanitation
  • water pollution

Not to mention transportation. It's fascinating and scary at the same time to see how megacities operate. In fact, if there's a city with 20 million people, it will have a whole new set of problems than a smaller one that might be running smoothly. It's like having children - the more you have, the more problems you have but also the more joy. Everything just multiplies.

So after studying the Blacksmith Institute's "Dirty Thirty" and similar resources, I came up with my list of, well, not the "Dirty Dozen" but a Top Ten of Deadliest Metros (in alpha order) and one main environmental issue:

  1. Beijing, China - air pollution coupled with dust storms
  2. Buenos Aires, Argentina - flood-prone due to geographic location
  3. Cairo, Egypt - worst air pollution
  4. Caracas, Venezuela - world's murder capital
  5. Dhaka, Bangladesh - worst water pollution
  6. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania - huge sanitation problem
  7. Johannesburg, South Africa - crime capital
  8. Mexico City, Mexico - industries fuel air pollution
  9. Moscow, Russia - nuclear waste problem
  10. New Delhi, India - toxins and chemicals in water

As is the case with all lists, it will change as new data becomes available. And, of course, there were many other contenders like Manila, Mumbai and even London and Athens. So rather than point fingers at these ten, the article wants to highlight one problem each of the megacities is battling with. And underline their strange beauty.

Here's the full article including many sources.

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