It is estimated that over the next 30 years, most of the world’s growth will be found in the urban areas.
Consider the following realities of our urban world:
- By 2050, the world’s urban population is expected to be the same as the total global population of 2002.
- China is expected to have an urban population of 1 billion people by 2050; India will have 0.9 billion.
- Over half of urban dwellers now live in cities or towns with fewer than 500,000 people.
- In 1970 only two megacities (10 million or more inhabitants) existed. Today there are 23 megacities in the world, and 37 are expected by 2025.
- Megacities account for 10 percent of the world’s urban population, and 14 percent are expected in 2025.
- There are more people living in the city of Tokyo (37 million) than in the entire country of Algeria, Canada, or Uganda.
- About half of the urban population of the world will live in Asia by 2020.
- Seventy-five percent of the world’s urban residents live in 25 countries.
- China, India, and the United States account for 37 percent of the world’s urban population.
- The population of the world is expected to exceed 67 percent urban by 2050, with the more developed regions growing from 78 percent urban to 86 per- cent and the less developed regions from 47 per- cent to 64 percent.
We live in an urban world. Just this week, I sent a tweet with a link to a most fascinating video. In the next 12-15 years, the Chinese government is moving 250 million farmers to the cities. That is an amazing amount of social upheaval and change. China–and the world–will be forever changed as a result of such urbanization.
In his book, Shadow Cities, Robert Neuwirth writes, “Every year, close to 70 million people leave their rural homes and head for the cities. That’s around 1.4 million people a week, 200,000 a day, 8,000 an hour, 130 every minute.” Whenever we look across the world, we learn that
- 40% of Africans are living in cities
- 45% of Asians are living in cities
- 79% of Latin Americans and Caribbeans are living in cities
- 71% of Oceania are living in cities
- 73% of Europeans are living in cities
- 82% of North Americans are living in cities
The size, diversity, poverty/wealth, and pace of change are just a few matters that shape the way we equip those going to serve in the urban contexts and how we do ministry in the cities.
The growth of cities–a pressure point shaping the face of the Church and mission.
If you missed the previous posts in this series, you may find them linked below:
Pressure Point #6 Globalization
Pressure Point #5 International Migration
Pressure Point #4 Pluralism and the Plurality of Faiths
Pressure Point #3 Growth of the Majority World Church
Pressure Point #2 The West as a Mission Field
Pressure Point #1 Unreached Peoples
The Church and the Pressures of the Age
Pressure Points is scheduled to be released July 16 and is now available for pre-order in paperback, Kindle, and audio book.
(Image credit: Microsoft Office)
