Around 90 per cent of the Earth’s human population will live in cities by 2080, according to expert.

Today, around 4.4 billion people, just over half the global population, reside in urban areas.

This urbanisation trend is expected to continue over the coming decades, raising critical questions: How will city-dwellers feed themselves? How will they navigate their cities? Will they have access to clean air and clean energy?

Greg Clark, an expert on sustainable urban transition, believes that in little over 50 years, around 90 per cent of the global population will live in cities.

“By 2080, that’s 55 years away, there will be more than 10 billion human beings,” Clark told Euronews Business this week. “Almost 90 per cent of us will be living in cities and in urban areas,” he added.

According to Clark, the human population will have reached its numerical peak by 2080. However, he believes that disrupting factors such as climate change, wars, and pandemics may cause that peak to occur even earlier.

Greg Clark’s prediction of increasing urbanisation does not come without challenges. Continued population growth will require the building of adaptable and sustainable cities. The urbanist has also highlighted what he believes are the hidden consequences of urban concentration of population, such as inequality and environmental pollution, challenges that are frequently overshadowed by the economic growth that cities drive.

“Permanent population growth and permanent economic development. I think we have to revise all of that and start to think differently”.

Clark outlines food, housing, and transport as being critical sectors that will require major innovation to accommodate growing urban populations, stating that: “Housing and food problems are going to take ingenuity”.

Greg Clark stresses the need to transform food systems through urban farming, agri-tech, water efficiency, and synthetic food innovation, while also addressing the global housing crisis by building more affordable, well-serviced homes, shifting the mindset from housing as investment to housing as an amenity.

He also notes that inequality in cities frequently leads to higher crime rates, threatening safety and eroding the overall experience of city living.

“Crime and insecurity, related to inequality, is the thing which I think we’re going to have to work on much more than we have been,” he told Euronews Business.

Clark also argues that, along with tackling urban challenges through technology and infrastructure, a lasting solution must also involve reconciling cities with the natural world.

“Whether [nature] returns as a pandemic, an infestation of rats, or something else… nature is coming back into cities whether we like it or not,” says Clark.

He highlights the importance of developing what he called organic cities, saying that integrating nature into urban areas could address many of todays pressing challenges, from flooding and overheating, to improving air quality.

“But in the end,” remarks Clark, “I think what you have to do is say, ‘this is about the future of the human race. Are we going to be able to manage and maintain our habitat in ways that will support life when we’ve gone?'”.

Greg Clark is a world expert on cities, urban investment, and the sustainable urban transition. Over a career of 35 years, he has advised more than 300 cities, 40 national governments, 20 multilateral institutions, and multiple global corporates, investors, and fund managers.

Submitted by Friends of Retha


The Message is the ground-breaking debut novel by Yan Vana, a thought-provoking and critically acclaimed book that will change the way you think about overpopulation and the near future of earth.