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Mapping the World’s New Megacities in 2030

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Mapping the World’s New Megacities in 2030

The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.

Rapid urbanization is one of the major forces shaping our global economic future.

A century ago, it was almost unfathomable that any person would want to live in a city with 10 million other people, but by the 1930s, New York City was the first metropolitan area to pass the mark. Fast forward to today, and there are 33 urban areas that meet the definition of a “megacity” spread throughout the globe.

It’s true that many of these megacities have been global centers for a long time – think cities like London, Tokyo, Los Angeles, and Paris – but we are now entering an era in which new megacities are cropping up every other year, including ones that have less familiar names and backstories.

The Megacity Landscape

Today’s chart is based on a forecast from Euromonitor International, outlining how the megacity landscape will shift in the coming years.

It focuses on the 39 megacities expected by the year 2030, when they will house 9% of the global population and contribute 15% of the world’s GDP. These same megacities will take up about 3% of global land mass.

New Megacities by 2030

Just over a decade from today, there will be five new megacities in developing countries, and one from a developed market:

Chicago
The Windy City has been on the cusp of the megacity mark for some time, and it will finally hit 10 million inhabitants in the coming years. In 2030, it will have by far the biggest GDP of all new megacities, at $596 billion (constant 2017 prices).

Bogotá
The high-altitude Colombian capital will join the ranks of other Latin American megacities like Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Mexico City, Lima, and Buenos Aires. It will have a $109 billion economy (constant 2017 prices) by this time.

Luanda
This is the entry to the list with the fastest-growing population. Between 2017-2030, the city will increase its residents by 60% – but it will still be nowhere as big as Cairo, which will be Africa’s biggest megacity at 29.8 million people.

Chennai
This city, which is on the Bay of Bengal in eastern India, will be the most dense of all new megacities by 2030. Chennai’s economy, however, will be $50 billion (constant 2017 prices) – which is just 1/12 the size of Chicago’s.

Baghdad
Iraq’s biggest city already has close to 8 million inhabitants, but by 2030 it will get to the double digits thanks to its impressive population growth rate.

Dar es Salaam
The most populous city in Tanzania is growing almost as fast as Luanda – and on top of that, it has the fastest-growing (and smallest) GDP of the six new megacities. This isn’t the first time the city’s name has come up in a projection like this, as the Global Cities Institute sees it being the third most populous city in the world further down the line.

Other Projections

What other interesting things are projected to happen to key urban centers?

  • Jakarta is anticipated to be the biggest megacity of all in 2030 with 35.6 million people
  • Tokyo will fall from the top spot, as an aging population translates to negative population growth
  • Osaka will be the oldest megacity with 31% of the population aged 65+
  • Lagos will be the fastest-growing city overall in the 2017-2030 timeline
  • Roughly a dozen cities will double their economies over this timeframe, led by Dhaka, Manila, and Bangalore

When it comes to global urbanization, the only constant is change – and massive metropolises that seem unfathomable today could be much more commonplace down the road.

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Chart of the Week

The Road to Recovery: Which Economies are Reopening?

We look at mobility rates as well as COVID-19 recovery rates for 41 economies, to see which countries are reopening for business.

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The Road to Recovery: Which Economies are Reopening?

COVID-19 has brought the world to a halt—but after months of uncertainty, it seems that the situation is slowly taking a turn for the better.

Today’s chart measures the extent to which 41 major economies are reopening, by plotting two metrics for each country: the mobility rate and the COVID-19 recovery rate:

  1. Mobility Index
    This refers to the change in activity around workplaces, subtracting activity around residences, measured as a percentage deviation from the baseline.

  2. COVID-19 Recovery Rate
    The number of recovered cases in a country is measured as the percentage of total cases.

Data for the first measure comes from Google’s COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports, which relies on aggregated, anonymous location history data from individuals. Note that China does not show up in the graphic as the government bans Google services.

COVID-19 recovery rates rely on values from CoronaTracker, using aggregated information from multiple global and governmental databases such as WHO and CDC.

Reopening Economies, One Step at a Time

In general, the higher the mobility rate, the more economic activity this signifies. In most cases, mobility rate also correlates with a higher rate of recovered people in the population.

Here’s how these countries fare based on the above metrics.

CountryMobility RateRecovery RateTotal CasesTotal Recovered
Argentina-56%31.40%14,7024,617
Australia-41%92.03%7,1506,580
Austria-100%91.93%16,62815,286
Belgium-105%26.92%57,84915,572
Brazil-48%44.02%438,812193,181
Canada-67%52.91%88,51246,831
Chile-110%41.58%86,94336,150
Colombia-73%26.28%25,3666,665
Czechia-29%70.68%9,1406,460
Denmark-93%88.43%11,51210,180
Finland-93%81.57%6,7435,500
France-100%36.08%186,23867,191
Germany-99%89.45%182,452163,200
Greece-32%47.28%2,9061,374
Hong Kong-10%97.00%1,0671,035
Hungary-49%52.31%3,8161,996
India-65%42.88%165,38670,920
Indonesia-77%25.43%24,5386,240
Ireland-79%88.92%24,84122,089
Israel-31%87.00%16,87214,679
Italy-52%64.99%231,732150,604
Japan-33%84.80%16,68314,147
Malaysia-53%80.86%7,6296,169
Mexico-69%69.70%78,02354,383
Netherlands-97%0.01%45,9503
New Zealand-21%98.01%1,5041,474
Norway-100%91.87%8,4117,727
Philippines-87%23.08%15,5883,598
Poland-36%46.27%22,82510,560
Portugal-65%58.99%31,59618,637
Singapore-105%55.02%33,24918,294
South Africa-74%52.44%27,40314,370
South Korea-4%91.15%11,34410,340
Spain-67%69.11%284,986196,958
Sweden-93%13.91%35,7274,971
Switzerland-101%91.90%30,79628,300
Taiwan4%95.24%441420
Thailand-36%96.08%3,0652,945
U.S.-56%28.20%1,768,346498,720
United Kingdom-82%0.05%269,127135
Vietnam15%85.02%327278

Mobility data as of May 21, 2020 (Latest available). COVID-19 case data as of May 29, 2020.

In the main scatterplot visualization, we’ve taken things a step further, assigning these countries into four distinct quadrants:

1. High Mobility, High Recovery

High recovery rates are resulting in lifted restrictions for countries in this quadrant, and people are steadily returning to work.

New Zealand has earned praise for its early and effective pandemic response, allowing it to curtail the total number of cases. This has resulted in a 98% recovery rate, the highest of all countries. After almost 50 days of lockdown, the government is recommending a flexible four-day work week to boost the economy back up.

2. High Mobility, Low Recovery

Despite low COVID-19 related recoveries, mobility rates of countries in this quadrant remain higher than average. Some countries have loosened lockdown measures, while others did not have strict measures in place to begin with.

Brazil is an interesting case study to consider here. After deferring lockdown decisions to state and local levels, the country is now averaging the highest number of daily cases out of any country. On May 28th, for example, the country had 24,151 new cases and 1,067 new deaths.

3. Low Mobility, High Recovery

Countries in this quadrant are playing it safe, and holding off on reopening their economies until the population has fully recovered.

Italy, the once-epicenter for the crisis in Europe is understandably wary of cases rising back up to critical levels. As a result, it has opted to keep its activity to a minimum to try and boost the 65% recovery rate, even as it slowly emerges from over 10 weeks of lockdown.

4. Low Mobility, Low Recovery

Last but not least, people in these countries are cautiously remaining indoors as their governments continue to work on crisis response.

With a low 0.05% recovery rate, the United Kingdom has no immediate plans to reopen. A two-week lag time in reporting discharged patients from NHS services may also be contributing to this low number. Although new cases are leveling off, the country has the highest coronavirus-caused death toll across Europe.

The U.S. also sits in this quadrant with over 1.7 million cases and counting. Recently, some states have opted to ease restrictions on social and business activity, which could potentially result in case numbers climbing back up.

Over in Sweden, a controversial herd immunity strategy meant that the country continued business as usual amid the rest of Europe’s heightened regulations. Sweden’s COVID-19 recovery rate sits at only 13.9%, and the country’s -93% mobility rate implies that people have been taking their own precautions.

COVID-19’s Impact on the Future

It’s important to note that a “second wave” of new cases could upend plans to reopen economies. As countries reckon with these competing risks of health and economic activity, there is no clear answer around the right path to take.

COVID-19 is a catalyst for an entirely different future, but interestingly, it’s one that has been in the works for a while.

Without being melodramatic, COVID-19 is like the last nail in the coffin of globalization…The 2008-2009 crisis gave globalization a big hit, as did Brexit, as did the U.S.-China trade war, but COVID is taking it to a new level.

Carmen Reinhart, incoming Chief Economist for the World Bank

Will there be any chance of returning to “normal” as we know it?

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