How big can cities get?

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Resources:
A. Taubenböck, H., Esch, T., Felbier, A., Wiesner, M., Roth, A., & Dech, S. (2012). Monitoring urbanization in mega cities from space. Remote Sensing of Environment, 117, 162-176. [doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2011.09...](doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2011.09...)
[www.mckinsey.com/featured-ins...](www.mckinsey.com/featured-ins...)
B. [www.businessinsider.com/world...](www.businessinsider.com/world...)
C. [www.scmp.com/news/china/polit...](www.scmp.com/news/china/polit...)
D. [www.thoughtco.com/most-populo...](www.thoughtco.com/most-populo...)
E. [www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ji...](www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ji...)
F. [www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20190...](www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20190...)
Produced by Dave Amos in sunny San Luis Obispo, California.
Edited by Eric Schneider in cloudy Cleveland, Ohio.
Black Lives Matter.

[@CityBeautiful]

Sorry to those who were looking for this video on Nebula but couldn't find it. It's there now! It was actually on Nebula, but not linked on my channel page.

[@nickmartin123456]

Thanks! I know you've also played your fair share of SimCity 2k. Any thoughts on how Arco's might be developed in the future? And how tall self-sufficient cities within cities would impact their surrounding neighborhoods?

[@TheYounis2012]

Federal Republic of Somalia is a countey on the horn of Africa! Why, then are you using a map that shows Somalia divided? You're pushing politics! How would you like me to cut up your country?

[@drstrangeluv25]

Thanks for another awesome video! I’m a nebula viewer and just wanted to suggest cutting the ad for nebula in your nebula version. We’re already there after all.

[@bhuiyanfarhantanvir6513]

Want more video about dhaka. It’s probably the worst in the world

[@edayhashim]

I feel like it’s not wise to place so many eggs in one basket. Wouldn’t that alarm urban planner at the national level of the high security risks from possible natural disasters, disease outbreaks, man-made pollutions & nuclear explosions that would easily wipe out hundred millions people. I prefer Germany model where urban areas are spread out evenly all over the countries.

[@SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

We don't need to be bigger, Pyongyang is the perfect size. The perfect city to live in

[@timmmahhhh]

Population control by starvation and hard labor.

[@weareorigin]

Dear Leader, I heard some elevators don't work so people have to walk up 7+ floors of stairs to home.

[@WilliamMohamad-uv5fi]

Thank you kim

[@andrewrivers5475]

Its the exercise initiative not dysfunctional elavators

[@MagicalBread]

@@timmmahhhh booooo! You just ruined it.

[@samdekker90]

Me, a small town New Zealand kid when moving to an Australian city of 2 million: "I'm finally living in a big city!" KZbin: cities of 200,000,000... 🤯

[@KhanPiesseONE]

Australian cities are very congested though, so the difference in every day life between a city of 100 million and an Australian city of 2-5 million isn’t as massive as you’d think.

[@samdekker90]

@@KhanPiesseONE i can't imagine an Aussie city's congestion being comparable to that of a 200m population city. It might seem congested in Sydney and Melbourne, but relatively they're not that bad compared to Asian cities.

[@dinil5566]

Me, huh... An Indian living in a rural village with 25000 population. 👍 I probably am not kidding

[@MitchellBPYao]

Damn, I live in the Australia biggest city Sydney and that's considered small

[@MitchellBPYao]

4 milion

[@mylim4020]

looking at the example of china, you can also consider the Netherlands, Belgium, North Rhine and Nord--Pas de Calais as a single urban area

[@AnsarAli-kv1hh]

I think it's known as the Blue Banana Megalopolis

[@MrMaxbout]

I agree that it is kinda a single urban area because i travel a lot everyday across theses region 🤷‍♂️ i live in Lille France, go shop by metro in Belgium, and take a fast train to visit my parents every weekend, a 30 minutes trips away on the coast 🤷‍♂️ so it clearly feels like a short trip

[@shermanfirefly5410]

@@MrMaxbout And in North America.....You ain't going anywhere if you don't have a car

[@MrMaxbout]

@@shermanfirefly5410 yeah i know that 😅 it's awfull 😅 for example from my parents to my house i have 2hours by car because of traffic sometimes 3 if crazy traffic but when I take the high speed train, 5€ the trip, and 30 minutes later i'm at home 🤷‍♂️ i really don't understand why America don't implement that, it's just way better than driving and i clearly hate driving 😂🤣

[@GordonSlamsay]

@@MrMaxbout lmao it used to be 30 minutes by car to the nearest train/metro station in my old city (in Canada)

[@binyu2374]

I live in Tianjin,and the city actually functions more like six cities ,each of the six boroughs have their own public amenities,personalities,and you’ll almost never have to travel into another borough to get something done,I live just inside the city’s expressway ring,and going into the square mile of old downtown feels like going to another city every time.

[@SuleymanAydin980]

KZbin is Ban in china right? How'd you guys use then?

[@anacinus_lemius]

​@@SuleymanAydin980 VPNs certainly😂

[@DaniMrtini]

Well I believe according to Civilization 6, you can expand 3-5 tiles from your city and reach maybe a total population of somewhere between 60 and 100 (which would require you to focus on nothing but food production.) But what do I know, I barely have 3k hours of gameplay

[@OrviC]

3k hours? that's like 2 games

[@autotainment3113]

@@OrviC tru

[@BeanOnTheFlipside]

69420k hours

[@Volkspanzer]

Man I wanna have civ 6 but I don’t have a PS4 or a good pc

[@projectember728]

What would 60 population be converted from civ 6

[@LucasDimoveo]

The speed of public transportation really would make or break mega or gigacities. Living in Queens felt like a different planet from the Bronx or Manhattan, for example.

[@davidarundel6187]

Recently China opened the world's longest Maglev service, between Beijing & Tanjin - the commute time used to be 3-4 hours, it's now 30 Min, with services every 5 Min.

[@Aithis.]

@@davidarundel6187 it’s far faster to get to the city and places all over the country by train where I live instead of driving (my country is very small, being slightly smaller than Catalonia of Spain) because of the amount of money pumped into the train services so here I am at age 23 with no car and quite happy. The only time I can imagine it being annoying is if I wanted to go camping and I couldn’t really bring everything on the train. I’ll learn to drive at some point but right now train travel is the way to go to for me

[@davidarundel6187]

@@Aithis. like you, I live in a small country, close to opposite, to Catalonia. Our roads, are not as well funded as Europe, nor do we have Europe's population. Yet our governments over my lifetime, have reduced passenger services, to two, city's commuter services. It used to have in the 1970's, out of one station, each day, over 30 long distance services, other major towns & city's, were served, with multiple, long distance services. Now, there's two tourist trains, one runs alternate days ( this line, had in excess of twenty, services, running off one third of the line - junctions for other areas took just over two thirds of the traffic. Now, it's either Bus, or Fly. If one owns a car, the roads, are often clogged, on a daily basis. Our largest city, used to take 1 hour to get from the most northern, to the most southern edge of the city, now, even with more lanes installed, travel time has doubled - none of the local transport is reasonably priced, as the WEF, decided that we, must have services profitable, or loose them. We lost & now use, used carridges , for long distance trains, hauled by Chinese locos, which have always breaken down - like the larger locos brought last century, 'preloved' from South Africa.

[@sonicboy678]

Then there's Staten Island. In general, I'd say the Manhattan-centric model currently employed is okay on its own, but a real detriment in the grand scheme of things. The rules surrounding JFK's AirTrain when it was constructed have hampered its usefulness as public transportation, while Cuomo's pet project for LaGuardia only highlights his political posturing (and if Hochul really is reconsidering alternatives, said pet project may actually be off the table).

[@steverempel8584]

These giant mega cities are more like large areas where the landscape is "Urban," rather than a single, unified community. When it's big enough, you need more than one core, a few large urban areas in the world have multiple cores like that, Including Tokyo, and the North Rhine Area.

[@dannydude2121]

imagine being on tinder in one of these cities

[@fugueguy1929]

I got tons of girls every day in shanghai

[@driss3946]

@@fugueguy1929 But half of those are bots or catfishes trying to drain your juicy foreigner money.

[@fugueguy1929]

Driss only 5% was bots and I look chinese (partly chinese) so most girls was pretty and real.

[@WeAreSMC96]

@Harkaran Lakhotra well that’s the fun of being on tinder!

[@thaintriguing1]

“You ran out of swipes for today”

[@reinerjung1613]

The traffic issue is a problem when you build cities following the modernistic model separating living, working, culture etc. We made our cities like this after WW2 with the success of the automobile. However, today city planners want to make city quarters more localized so that you can reach most daily location that you visit reachable in 10-20 minutes by foot or bike or public transport. This would remove to commute issue as a limit.

[@ArthursHD]

If we can inscrees efficiency, minimize noize levels. Run all sort of processes using cleaner energy tech. Get more green spaces it the city without sacrificing density. And do all that at reasonable price. Than we can get bigger cities. But look at the trend of remote working. And communications are only getting cheaper with advancements ICs. So you do not have to live in a large city to have a good quality of life. Basically if cities will be worse places to live their capacity will be naturally limited by demand.

[@musAKulture]

precisely. in my city the plan is "15 min walking communities".

[@bristoled93]

I live in the middle of an old European city and just walks everywhere. (Bristol England)

[@Somajsibere]

Would also allow for denser cities

[@jeanf6295]

That does not help, but pushed to its logical conclusion the fix implies that most people would have to get their job within no more than a ten to twenty kilometre radius from their family home, and that kinda defeats the diversity of job opportunities argument for cities that would grow well beyond that size.

[@oklahomadepartmentofaerosp6119]

Someday Oklahoma City and Tulsa will sprawl out so far that they meet, causing the universe to instantly implode.

[@shmeckle666]

Lol yeah, yeah...one day.

[@andrewrivers5475]

Oklahoma isnt a state its a place made up by establishment republicans to hold rallies propegated by fake news fox

[@andrewrivers5475]

Unless you mean Texas Number 2

[@CB0408]

Only to be conurbated by greater Amarillo.

[@Aquatarkus96]

@@CB0408 Lol amarillo is growing in the EXACT opposite direction because nobody wants to live any closer to Oklahoma than we already do

[@DiegoSaulReyna]

anyone saying "gigacity" charge them copy right bro.

[@fullmetaltheorist]

He's too chill to go around copyright striking people.

[@simulping4371]

trademark em

[@muhammadfadhilwiraathaya6917]

Fans from Indonesia

[@DS-Pakaemon]

Gigacity

[@codywohlers2059]

should have been for a billion people

[@TheLiamster]

It’s crazy to think that there might be cites in the future with a larger population than my entire country, I live in the UK btw.

[@ZiomekPatrykC]

Yup, Greater Tokyo is already the size of Poland, so I know what you feel. (In terms of population obviously.)

[@curivia]

And Canada, the 2nd largest country by area in the world :p.

[@rab6121]

then you have Norway, 5 million people. Oslo is about 1million. A LOT of cities around the world has a population of more than 5mill.

[@DacLMK]

There are tons of cities that are larger than the population of my country (Macedonia, 2 Million).

[@j2dragon109]

@Царь Батюшка This is hardly enough evidence to suggest this is happening everywhere, Russia is just one country.

[@motherhubbard2786]

Idk I haven't got the 81 tile mod yet.

[@croissantdiet7513]

lmao Cities Skylines player

[@motherhubbard2786]

@Martin Matthew Joy Then there's only one explanation... ASIA GOT EARLY ACCESS TO CITIES: SKYLINES 2.0

[@AFT_05G]

81 tiles makes around 18x18km square in the game which is actually equivelant of a medium sized city.

[@Zoombieknr1]

@Martin Matthew Joy yeah, it would be interesting and fun to see those numbers in game, but we all know Cities Skylines has a road network and buildings limits so maybe in the next city building game we will make way bigger cities.

[@juanvazquez5836]

If you think about it 81 tiles in C:S is not that big compared to real life cities. In the case of Buenos Aires in Argentina it would be the city center plus the dock area, and not much more, which is like 25% of the entire city, and Buenos Aires is a very small city compared to others lol

[@fernbedek6302]

If I remember correctly, some of China’s planned super cities had a lower population density than Java. Considering Java’s ongoing rapid growth, and the fact it already has such high densities, I suspect it might stumble into being one of the largest urban areas on earth soon.

[@Homer-OJ-Simpson]

I don’t understand this argument. China’s mega cities are already super crowded and population is going to decline in China soon. They are also becoming richer so they are fewer Chinese who are willing to live in small tightly packed homes like Java.

[@fernbedek6302]

@@Homer-OJ-Simpson 1) It’s not an argument? 2) I was talking about the planned super cities, like the Beijing-Tianjin combo, which would include massive suburban regions. 3) What do Chinese demographics and migration have to do with Java?

[@Homer-OJ-Simpson]

@@fernbedek6302 Beijing Taijin need lots of more people to close those gaps. China’s population is dropping soon and there are fewer rural people to bring in than there was 10-30 years ago. And people of China are raising their standards of living meaning they won’t live in tight housing like java. I probably misunderstood you on Java. I thought you were arguing Beijing area would or could see massive growth and you were pointing to java to demonstrate how packed people can live

[@fernbedek6302]

@@Homer-OJ-Simpson I’m not the one coming up with the Beijing-Tianjin megalopolis idea, so that’s not really a relevant point to my comment? And I think you’re definitely misunderstanding, because the demographics of China are of minimal relevance to a future Indonesian megalopolis.

[@ruedelta]

@@Homer-OJ-Simpson Keep in mind that the richer districts are still near city centers like much of the world. So Chinese people getting richer simply means they will compete for closer housing. It's younger people who end up in the suburbs.

[@shmeckle666]

Oh, the return of the city-state. Hm, what's old is new.

[@jarnold1789]

Interesting

[@planefan082]

Ngl I like the idea of city-states.

[@juzloopz24]

Singapore?

[@luisbernales6336]

@@juzloopz24 but with Vietnam's population

[@nobrang5146]

@@planefan082 I dont

[@TomKellyXY]

I live in Greater Tokyo and its great. Most of what is discussed here is already a reality but infrastructure is essential to make it work. I’m from small town New Zealand is so did not expect to feel so at home here. Tokyo is great, it’s clean and efficient. There are parks and malls everywhere. I can use dozens of train networks with the same card and even use it in other cities nationwide. It costs only a few dollars to get from Yokohama to the airport in Chiba or our other campus in Saitama. Essentially if there’s a conference anywhere in Kanto I don’t need to pay for a hotel because I get there in a little over an hour. It’s around the same distance to the beach our hot springs in the mountains. Mass transit means that anyone can get around cheaply and efficiently. The city feels smaller than Auckland or LA because the transport infrastructure is so much more developed.

[@jasonreed7522]

That sounds amazing, this morning i looked to see how long it would take to get places in the Northeast using options other than car and was greatly saddened. (Mainly seeing if i could enjoy a nice train ride instead of a 6-7 hour drive) The answer was so depressing. I am a 10min drive to a train station south of Hartford CT (basically dead center of the tiny state). And to visit Syracuse NY (center of the state) would take 4hrs by car or 8 by train (admittedly the mass pike and NY throughway are great for inter city travel which is what freeways are supposed to be used for). To get to within a hour and a half of my hometown would take me to lake placid or Plattsburgh NY (near the Canadian border due north of Albany) would take around 18hrs, and i still would have a 2 hour car drive left. I can go straight home in 6-7 depending on traffic and breaks needed. (3 of which are spent crossing mountains on 55-60mph roads, which admittedly is the only enjoyable part of the drive, interstates are so boring) Lets just say the American trains are not worth taking which is a shame, as Amtrak has 1 line that lets you take a car with you and that line connects 2 cities when it should be available for going to rural places where you objectively must use a car. (I had the idea of doing that before to get Americans on rails but DC to Orlando is an interesting choice for such an option)

[@rituwebpro]

Tokyo has more population than Texas and also has way way way more and way way way better rail transportation

[@Martin-cw1up]

This channel is part of the reason I'm now studying to become a urban planner

[@TheAustrian101]

When they become too big they begin to experience mysterious bugs like Night City.

[@eleventrackmind]

LMFAO

[@javiersp15]

Star Wars taught me that an entire planet can be a city: Courosant.

[@TheLiamster]

It’s spelt “Coruscant”, also there are other city planets in Star Wars such as Nar Shaddar and Hosnian Prime.

[@abiku2923]

Also it would realistically be limited by the amount of heat it would create with +1T people living, working and moving through the city. At a certain point, the cost of pumping the heat out (incredibly difficult) would surpass the benefits of having that many people in one city compared with living in orbit around the planet.

[@Killerspieler0815]

@Javier Suárez - The BORG from Star Trek tought me siomilar, just far more efficient, every flat has the size of a standing bed kzbin.info/www/bejne/baXboGuFm76ChKM ( @ 3min 33sec )

[@nicosd3017]

The problem is that we dont have hundreds of planets to import food to earth

[@user-nf9xc7ww7m]

If the entire city is a planet, the air quality would be 💩 or worse...☣☢⚠️

[@apadgettski]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the midsize city is the future. They're efficient, they have the necessary work opportunities and amenities, and they're cheaper to live in or around. I live in Minneapolis and I think cities like it will become more desirable in the future. The transportation is robust, there's a vibrant arts and cultural scene, and the airport has lots of international destinations. I just don't see the benefit of moving a city any larger when the cost is usually so much higher

[@musAKulture]

it's only because you have the luxury of living in the US. outside the West, only cities with more than 10 million pop would be considered worthy of having cultures and events.

[@mastahfrederique3380]

@@musAKulture But in the future, as his comment states, those countries could have much more developed economies that could make mid-sized cities more desirable for cultural institutions than they are currently.

[@pundlik9012]

yeah

[@disastermidi1990]

The winters can suck but other than that I love Minneapolis

[@lzh4950]

@@hiphipjorge5755 Meanwhile in Singapore: Can't devolve when your country's the size of a city

[@Xergecuz]

My city absorbed some small towns while growing, and those towns still function as independent cities, even thou they still are inside the metropolitan area, and the citizens travel from one side to the other, for school and work.

[@manhoosnick]

Where is that

[@alexbosworth1582]

Same happened with the Phoenix, AZ area. I live in Scottsdale, but travel to Tempe for school and to Phoenix for fun and other stuff. There’s like a dozen individual cities that make up the metro region here (Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, Tempe, Glendale, Chandler, Gilbert, and many more)

[@Fisha695]

Fredericksburg Virginia is like that. The actual independent city is only 10.5sqmi with a population of about 30,000 people, however the "Greater Fredericksburg Area" (what most people mean when they say they're from Fredericksburg) covers decent chunks of 4 counties, atleast 9 zip codes and has close to 340,000 people living in it.

[@seanthe100]

Most cities if not all in the US did this exact same thing.

[@matheenarif8645]

Lemme guess New Delhi NCR? National capital region.

[@josheydubs]

Whenever I think of a Megacity, my first thought is always Ba Sing Se from Avatar the Last Airbender. And I have some thoughts on how the city was planned....

[@neiandresamuels5428]

Ba sing se was basically the Tokyo of ATLA

[@josheydubs]

@@neiandresamuels5428 No actually. Ba Sing Se was designed to resemble Bejing ame the forbidden city. Size wise, maybe. But otherwise, no.

[@woollypidgeon1948]

@@josheydubs It also feels closer to New York around the turn of the 20th century in how it's represented

[@SteveSilverActor]

Tokyo is interesting is that it is a growing city in a shrinking country.

[@ixlnxs]

😎Japan isn't shrinking. It's the same size as when you were born.🥰 🧐Its population may be a bit smaller every year, but the quality of life only increases and that's what counts. The population of the USA has increased a lot since I was a child in 1990s California, Utah and Idaho, but it increasinly feels like the third world when I go there.

[@john-sebastianbarrera1884]

Buenos Aires and La Plata in Argentina will eventually merge in the coming years adding more than 1 million more residents to Buenos Aires' already 14 million population

[@arielsitoo9270]

they all ready merge, people works and travel for one city to the other, more than 16 million lives in the combined metro area bro

[@oguzayaz5738]

.The city shown in 0:23 is not Jakarta, it is Istanbul i can see my home there :D Unlike most people I love living in Istanbul it is such a good example for a mega city and the only one sits on two continents.

[@SH-xq9fw]

Damn! Was gonna visit in April this year but oh well

[@manuel6273]

No wonder why I'm so confused, I don't even remember we have a huge lake.. lmao

[@haroldinho9930]

So that’s why it looked like Istanbul. By the way Istanbul is beautiful.

[@RizalBudiLeksono]

lol i wondered how jakarta looks like that when it's not even looks like that at all

[@ixlnxs]

🥰And 1:21 and 2:02? Isn't that also Istanbul instead of Nagoya? 🤩

[@CityBeautiful]

What do you think? Is there a theoretical maximum size for a single urban area? What is the biggest possible limitation?

[@chungonion]

Transportation maybe? If you are talking like commuting 4-5 hours on average then it seems they are not sort of a "single" urban area.

[@alexryusandi]

In Jakarta, the only limitation is government regulation that provide incentives for decentralization

[@nitehawk86]

I think geography has a big influence on it, eventually cities run up against terrain that makes it difficult to get transportation and fresh water in to the city.

[@juicysushi]

I think the limitation is one of governance. You can have an urban area of up to a billion people. But at some point you are unable to control it without delegating core functions to lower levels of government. At that point, you’re no longer one area. But that is also semantics as arguably that is just the split between urban and regional/national governments as well.

[@mukrifachri]

I think there was a mismatch at 0:21 - it says "Jakarta, Indonesia" but at 1:58 the same picture is used for Karachi. I live around Jakarta and I don't recognize the landscape in the picture either (Jakarta is largely flat and devoid of any large open space closer to the coast, plus the coastline is just straight with a slight curve to it), so I presume it is actually Karachi and not Jakarta being shown.

[@berkeylmaz1778]

0:23 is Istanbul not Jakarta 2:02 is not Karachi either it’s also Istanbul

[@sirBrouwer]

no you might not have noticed but about a hour ago they switched names for a day. just to confuse tourists for a day. (what tourist you ask I don't know)

[@tvTwo1]

i visited Jakarta in 2017 and the layout is way different LOL, it's much more dense w/ highrises

[@tortoise-chan]

unfortunately stock footage is often mislabeled or not labeled at all

[@mukrifachri]

@@tortoise-chan Yeah, this particular series of stock videos he was using claims footages of Istanbul for Karachi, Dhaka and Jakarta as well. www.istockphoto.com/search/stack/797330614?assettype=film Footage at 0:21 is looking over the Asian side of Istanbul on the approach path to Attaturk airport rwy 23.

[@satyakibarman6071]

5:29 thats not Kolkata as well

[@Thrilller525]

5-6 hr commute ! Imagine you get there and your boss says you didn’t have to come in 😭.

[@joebond2099]

Working from home might be a solution for that

[@ric4397]

Took a train through the Pearl River Delta and it already feels like a megacity from Shenzhen to Guangzhou. Just 2 hours continuous of tall buildings and more tall buildings.

[@fszocelotl]

Mexico City dweller here. Living in a place that has gone from 10 million to 23+ million during your lifetime, and in a place that was near the edges to just our of the city core, in an economy that has been transitioning from the industrializing to the post industrial in that half century, just makes you wonder about places that remain stagnant for decades or longer. We already have a multipass card that can be used for several of the transport networks within the metro area. The central crown of Mexico (Mexico City plus Puebla, Tlaxcala, Cuernavaca, Pachuca and Toluca, maybe totaling a population equivalent of that of Canada), may look and work as a megalopolis, but the mountains separating the individual population centers limit the population growth and fusion given the impled commuting times.

[@iammrbeat]

The Northeast Megalopolis! mwhahahahahahahahahaha

[@Jjjaaahhnn]

Hahaha love it when you do that in your vids! Keep up the great work man!

[@thegreatrandomchannel338]

A part of the US that is more than 17 percent of the entire US population with somewhere around 50 million people which owns less than 2 percent of the land

[@SYJ703]

Mr. Beat compare San Diego and Tijuana

[@vidjuy]

Delhi and its satellite cities are a good candidate too. Delhi+Gurugram+Noida+Ghaziabad+Faridabad= Population of close to 30 million. GDP of larger than 300 billion,High level of industrialization and very closely connected transport system, which even connects to closer small cities like Panipat, Meerut, Sonepat. It is also very close to larger cities like Agra, Jaipur and Chandigarh This Urban Agglomeration will be largest in India in coming years, probably same as Beijing Tianjin one.

[@francoisperrot4890]

Delhi is currently the 5th built-up area of the world with 30,58 M inhabitants. You're right, it ll be soon conurbated with Sonipat and then Meerut to reach 35M in less than 10 years, for the other ones I don't think so. Maybe sooner, Mumbai with Pune and already, the biggest coastal built-up area from Kozhikode to Kochi and Thiruvanathapuram largely being conurbated yet when you see the Google Maps aerial views!

[@r.arulkumar7349]

Not only Delhi But Mumbai MMR with Pune Greater Chennai+Bangalore megalopolis is also possible

[@Harsh-hy9ls]

@Vijay Raghavan What???

[@rdormer]

Once one side of a city is so far away from the other that the people who live there have little interaction with those on the other end, I'd argue that the city is basically two cities. Administratively it may be taxed and financed as one unit, but that's largely an accounting convenience. In any ways that really matter, they're separate entities. If I have to take a prolonged train ride, drive for two and a half hours, or take a plane to get to the other end of "my city," then there's going to be enough local differences that my destination isn't really the same city that I left from.

[@fernbedek6302]

In the pre-car era that was probably true of many of history’s largest cities. Rome in the classical era with 1 million people was probably an undertaking to cross. Plus, if people thousands of kilometres apart, living in totally different environments, can share a sense of national identity, surely people a few hundred could share a similar sense of urban identity?

[@kthemaster1999]

That's kinda how it is with New York right now with it's boroughs

[@sirBrouwer]

event current bigger cities have that. some people might not move out of a borough or two that in them selves are big enough to function as a town with in. the question is if you are outside of the mega city and talk to someone do you identify your self as someone of said city or a part of said city? . if that other person is from outside of that mega city and they ask where do you live? do you give them the name of the mega city or the area you live with in? even now someone living in New York City do in the city you may refer to a borough bit do they do that to someone from outside of New York City?

[@maxviviani9042]

@@fernbedek6302 modern era Rome is probably worse.... Pretty often people that live on one side of the city but study/work on the other just move there because commuting would take way too long

[@lunamcgrath3266]

I'm from Austin and that's kinda how it is with the North/South divide.

[@eyan4329]

You should make a video on how to build a new city

[@bigabzboss]

from scratch!

[@lightyagami1936]

Download simcity build fron playstore :-p

[@InventorZahran]

Normal humans: "120M is A LOT of people for one city!" Me, a Star Wars fan: "I know a planet that's entirely covered in urban sprawl. Over 3 trillion people live there, and the tallest buildings are 27 kilometres high."

[@Peizxcv]

Someone crunched the number and as it turned out that’s actually very low population density. Even with population density decreasing as you descent into the lower levels 3 trillion won’t fill up a city thousands of floor tall

[@elfelon9465]

@@Peizxcv nice

[@trentondelao6192]

@@Peizxcv I saw a video on this from Issac Arthur his video on ecumenopolis

[@theorangeoof926]

I think a city spanning a planet is called an “Ecumenopolis”.

[@mastahfrederique3380]

Coruscant's population is just over 1 trillion, m8.

[@lzh4950]

4:26 The last 'Jì' (冀) refers to the former/historic/archaic name of Hebei (河北, pronounced as "her bay") province (the one just north of Beijing, & also home to the city of Tangshan, which was known for it's large earthquake in 1976)

[@Alpine1]

Love your videos! I am the main urban planner for the Minecraft city you reviewed a couple months ago, and I was the one that created the urban planning document. I like to incorporate some of the elements you talk about in your videos in my Minecraft building videos!

[@napoleonibonaparte7198]

An introvert’s nightmare

[@randomavenger3048]

Not necessary. It's way easier to avoid true social interaction in large cities than in small or medium. But if the person has a specific fear of crowds, it's worse indeed.

[@marrqi7wini54]

@@randomavenger3048 Yeah, you can be someone who's an extremely social person yet completely hate crowds.

[@jjw3046]

​@@randomavenger3048 Yep, it's easier to disappear in a house party of 100 people than one with only 20 people. The fewer people in the room the more attention is on you.

[@musAKulture]

you can find plenty of places to hide in a big city; in a small town, there's nowhere to hide; everyone knows everyone.

[@randomavenger3048]

​@@musAKulture I lived in a huge city, with millions of inhabitants, but I lived in small city (5 thounsand people), and that's true.

[@gingerhid]

I rarely comment on videos but just have to say how impressive these vids are - thoughtful, informative, well researched, a great resource. Thanks!

[@willd4686]

I visited Manhattan last year. The buildings are so dense and the pattern continues as far as the eye can see. It's unbelievable. I hope I'll get to see more of Manhattan and New York in my life but as I'm Canadian I'll never likely get to live in such a dense and beautiful place. It feels like a planet made by man for man.

[@Alaois]

And Manhattan only has what? 6 million people or so? Now imagine these 60-100 million person cities and living there.

[@blogoosfera]

Note: I'm using literal language here. The problem I see about this is the possible formation of gigantic pockets of poverty. This is not the case in Tokyo because Eastern culture favors an economically healthy level of development. Tokyo is distinguished not only by its size, but by its low poverty rates, its organization and cleanliness, its security and its high standard of living. Thank You for this video. Stay safe.

[@Roxor128]

Just a thought, but one possible way to improve connectivity in a city might be to stop treating the roads as the only way to get around and add a secondary network several stories up, so people can walk between buildings without having to go down to ground level first. Make better use of the verticality that comes with skyscrapers.

[@xmrun]

I think that would be too expensive ti build

[@Roxor128]

@@xmrun If we assume a block is 200*200m, then assuming bridges every 100m which are 20m long, we'd need 4*200+12*10=800+120=920m worth of raised walkable surface per block. If you can afford a 1km pedestrian bridge, you could afford to add a layer to a block. As a bonus feature, this would reduce the need to deal with crossing roads with cars on them. Let the car drivers get stuck in traffic.

[@iSkully99]

@@xmrun Sounds like hell as someone who's afraid of heights

[@KarryKarryKarry]

If you enjoy living in permanent darkness then this is a possibility.

[@Roxor128]

@@KarryKarryKarry Why would you have permanent darkness? If you've got bridges every 100m, there's still plenty of space for light to get down. Doubly so if buildings have that stepped design where they get narrower as they go up, which would pull in the walkway and lengthen the bridges.

[@deannabanman243]

Great video! Love the concept! I recommend your channel to anyone who enjoys learning :) keep it up

[@urvagrawal2358]

I think there would be a most efficient size of a city .... bigger then that the transportation inefficiencies would reduce efficiency and smaller then that we won't get full advantage of have all resources and types of people near by... if a city gets so big that people start finding jobs in their near by areas that's not really one city any more. Its just a big area of urbanization with smaller actual cities in it.

[@Hexa1123]

This is a great look at large cities. The transportation issues and housing seem like the largest hurdles to overcome for city planners.

[@tejas8719]

Mumbai Urban region comprises of 6 different cities: Mumbai City, Mumbai Suburbs, Navi Mumbai (New Mumbai), Thane, Kalyan-Dombivali and Vasai along with 3 Sattelite towns. The population itself is = 30M + Add Pune just 120 km from Mumbai(7th or 8th Largest city in IN) and its satellite towns and suburbs = Another 12M + Add Nashik = 6-8 M In total this Western Indian Megapolis will have 50 M population in 2020.

[@francoisperrot4890]

Mumbay "built-up" area (continiously urbanized) is "only" 19,73 M inhabitants because Vasai-Virar, Kalyan, Ulashnagar and Ambernath are not conurbated yet. Pune with Pimpri-Chinwad and suburban communities is 6,9 M inhabitants.

[@yumikotanashi]

@@francoisperrot4890 how long until pune and Mumbai merge together With the metro and other developments it'll only get more crowded I guess, so it's clear the satellite cities will house huge migration rates and also maybe will reach upto Pune

[@bryanabare]

Beautiful work as usual

[@Ruby_V_]

I loved the inclusion of those night time satellite images!

[@Randomdive]

I wouldn't be surprised if São Paulo, Campinas, and Jundiaí combined to become (or continue to be I suppose) the biggest megacity in the Americas

[@bearcb]

São Paulo is already the biggest megacity in the Americas. It’s even the largest in the Western Hemisphere, there are only 3 larger cities in the world, all in Asia: Tokyo, Jakarta and Shanghai.

[@herrfred1322]

So weird to see all the guys in subway station etc without masks😂

[@harry5326]

Without mask. Normal

[@swisscheesygamers6399]

Really enjoyed this video, great job, very interesting

[@jam6636]

I really appreciate your videos! Greetings from Uruguay

[@kkkk-wg6je]

American say: Hmmm public transportation? What a concept!

[@space__idklmao]

Oh, we have transportation... just not clean, adequate, on-time transportation.

[@trentondelao6192]

Yah we can thank the auto and tire industry for that

[@thomasgrabkowski8283]

You can exclude New Yorkers

[@ku1]

@@thomasgrabkowski8283 I've never really associated new york city transit with being clean, on time, or fast. I wonder why 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

[@thomasgrabkowski8283]

@@ku1 at least it works, unlike other American cities

[@mpaulm]

The Roman Empire struggled with this a few times too. Sometimes getting too big can be a hindrance.

[@raney150]

But with the right policy and technology you can expand that limit. At their peak, the Roman Empire had about 70 million people. That is about 2 Tokyos and not much bigger than the UK is today.

[@evannibbe9375]

It mostly came down to a general dislike of entrepreneurs and “creative destruction” in allowing people to come up with their own companies to make things better. The other huge problem was having a class of people doing no labor who relied on the slaves

[@KarryKarryKarry]

The Roman policies of always having to conquer new territories to pay off aristocrats put a very finite limit to it’s expansion. The policy was never changed and resulted in the demise of Rome.

[@victuz]

@@KarryKarryKarry Same for capitalism. The concept of neverending expansionism and the lack of awareness about self-sustaining practices can put an end to it. The planet's resources aren't infinite.

[@salzwassersamunddiesoljank5573]

8:07 wearing a Mainz 05 T-shirt in the Shanghai Metro. Absolute Legend.

[@TokyoTaisu]

Thank you for this great video by the way!

[@cardenasr.2898]

I just moved from a 5M city to one that is barely 1M, best decision ever. My former city was fun as hell but I hated the long commutes. If there is ever a giga city, I won't be moving there, enjoy it if you like fellows

[@romnicklazatin3679]

Where are you from?

[@evannibbe9375]

That’s where public transport is key. If there’s a high enough density of people, and mixed-use zoning, then you can likely walk to everything you need!

[@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149]

_"You were so preoccupied with how big a city could get, that you didn't even consider how big it _*_should_*_ get."_ -Dinosaur science man

[@TamimLB]

The South African province of Gauteng has 3 big cities, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Rustenburg. Those cities are starting to collide.

[@brendanharan4501]

In West Virginia we call 100,000 a Megacity

[@GloriousSimplicity]

You mentioned that Chinese cities growth is limited by slowing population growth, this makes it seem like Chinese city growth is primarily driven by birthrate - death rate. While this is certainly a contributing factor, these cities are growing because of population migration from rural areas motivated be economic opportunity provided by Chinese Special Economic Zones. When you were born, Shenzhen essentially didn't exist, but now is one of the largest cities in the world. During the majority of this growth period, China had implemented its infamous One Child policy. There is no way that Shenzhen's growth can be explained by birthrate - death rate. Shenzhen was established as a Special Economic Zone to try to compete with Hong Kong. China has a population of 1.5 billion. While there are more Special Economic Zones than the ones mentioned in the video, you mentioned something like 0.3 billion people living in them. With the disparity in the quality of life inside vs outside the Special Economic Zones, it seems that one of the main limitations for the growth of these cities is the will of the Chinese government to continue certain economic policies.

[@icarusgotooclose]

I don't think he was meaning the birth rate within Shenzhen. He was meaning that with China's birth rate declining, the amount of people in the country who have not yet moved to a city is also declining. If the birth rate was high enough lot of people could have moved to cities while still leaving a sustained population back in the country, but that isn't the case. Also, he's not saying it will stop growing, just that the growth rate will slow down.

[@darthutah6649]

Eventually, there won't be anyone left to live in the rural areas.

[@Homer-OJ-Simpson]

Birth rate of China low and population will decline. Lots of people already have moved into mega cities. There are fewer people in the rest of China to move into the mega cities so therefore it stands to reason that these mega cities will likely not turn into gigacities or whatever he called the 100m plus city

[@darthutah6649]

@@Homer-OJ-Simpson at the very least not in China

[@s4098429]

The Chinese mega cities could continue to grow even if the population does not. Much of the physical growth in the developed world is suburban; people taking up more built space than previously. If the Chinese move from small apartments to large detached houses the physical size of Chinese cites will obviously increase. The population density would decrease, but the city’s footprint would grow. In fact, even a small increase in the built area of housing, multiplied by millions of residents, would lead to huge physical growth of the city’s built form. One of the greatest differences between cities in the developed world compared to the developing world is m^2 of housing per resident. Poor people in India live in small and crowded homes compared to wealthy people in NewYork. I think the ratio is something like 6:1.

[@kyjo72682]

5-6 hours of commuting a day would kill me. I used to live in a large city where I commuted 2-3 hours every day and I already started having depression. Now I live in a smaller city and I commute 20-30 minutes a day, either with a public transport or I can ride a bike if it's not raining. I can't even imagine living is such a huge metropolis..

[@lukesmithson4345]

Great video keep up the good work :)

[@Salamander220]

I love city beautiful so much you learn something new everyday

[@r1e5p3l7i2c]

Intuitively I feel like big cities have hit a logistic wall. At this point infrastructure solutions aren't discovering new levels of capital efficiency but instead are attempts to counteract the ever diminishment of it as populations rise.

[@91Durktheturk]

My personal thought is that these mega cities might be a temporary phenomenon. Once education levels, emancipation and economic levels increase in these developing countries, I think things like birthrates will stagnate. Eventually we will see shrinking populations, which we may see pretty soon in China.

[@jorgitoelperro7344]

*Amazing images!!*

[@MirekHeikkila]

Living in a city of 300 million, still forever single!

[@THEmickTHEgun]

Fun fact. The current population of Tokyo, Japan is greater than the entire population of my country Australia by around 12 million people.

[@gordonchao3074]

At least 4 cities have united into 2 cities in the Pearl River Delta, they are Guangzhou-Foshan and Zhuhai-Macao, even if the remaining cities are separated, it takes 10 min or less to travel from the end of a city to another city, so the Pearl River Delta will likely to succeed, personally I haven't been to Beijing and Shanghai, so I don't know how close the Jingjinji and Yangtze River Delta cities are, so I don't know whether they will succeed or not, but Pearl River Delta will succeed.

[@musAKulture]

i've been to all three. id say pearl river definitely has the best chance at it. most parts of shanghai is honestly just farmland; suzhou and hangzhou are full of mountains and lakes on the outskirts; the real "URBAN" parts aren't that big. shenzhen, guangzhou, foshan, zhongshan, zhuhai, dongguan are completely different beasts.

[@francoisperrot4890]

The Pearl River "built-up" area (continuously built) already includes Guangzhou (but Conghua district), Shenzhen, Dongguan and part of Zhongshan, Jiangmen, Huizhou, Zhuhai and Macao with 53,4 M inhabitants ! it's cuurently the first in the world followed by Shanghai-Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou.

[@phoenixskyward9972]

Hello @City Beautiful, thanks for the well made informative video. I was wondering if you can make a video about future cities that will become the leading cities/countries with technology, lifestyle, healthcare and so on.

[@coasteringkid]

The pearl river Delta is insane. There are plans for a Donguan metro line that will connect the Shenzhen and Guangzhou metro systems, so you could take a metro ride from Hong Kong to Guangzhou, over 100 miles.

[@av3s763]

As slow as it is, I’ve made many day trips from Boston to NYC for events getting back to Boston in the same day. With the eventual developement of better than bullet-train speeds, I can easily imagine living one place and working several hundred miles away across a giga-city.

[@eriktopolsky8531]

travelling to work and back must be amazing in such city. time spent at work 6 hours, time getting there and back 6 hours, nightmare come true

[@Miguel-ly4bm]

There is a city where you can experience that right now. It's Manila.. usually people commute anywhere from 2 to 6 hours. My ex used to work at 9 a.m. but had to start her day at 4:30-5 a.m.....after work she would hang out close to her job beca6 the traffic was so bad. She would kill 3 hours after work to go home and avoid rush hour

[@user-ny4yo1ru6h]

Great video 👍

[@adamalucard4655]

It's interesting how similar the mechanisms of the formation of cities are to that of black holes.

[@paxundpeace9970]

A classic example a multi-city is the Ruhr -Region in Germany including Dortmund, Essen, Gelsenkirchen und Bochum. Those cities are really in the same urban area and quite interconnected geographically. The Region contain other smaller cities like Bocholt too.

[@kaiserschmarx122]

Du hast vergessen ddas "und" in Englische zu übersetzen

[@thomasvan3786]

Flanders in Belgium, Randstad in The Netherlands, Po valley in Italy are similar.

[@paxundpeace9970]

@@kaiserschmarx122 passiert, danke.

[@xxxxx2084]

Living in Shanghai China, anywhere between 19-28 million depending on which areas are included. It doesn't feel much different than being a big city of 3-6 million. You don't really experience the full city, 4 hours from one corner to another, while it is the same city, the distance is just too far to be the same "area". Your local area, regardless of if the city is 3 million or 30 million, feels pretty similar.

[@Cal3000]

In the Southern California area, I used to commute 70 miles to college everyday and 50 miles to Downtown Los Angeles. Lot's of people in the SoCal LA region are already doing these wild commutes since continuous urbanization already stretches 80-90 miles from the coast.

[@bootup856]

Challenges gigacity needs to address 1. Water scarcity 2. Overcrowded transportation 3. Green cover 4. Stress on mental health of the people 5. Defense against any natural disasters

[@Alex-cw3rz]

I think a way of looking at it on a micro scale is looking at places like Greater Manchester in the UK, every town and city in the area, has it's own identity, which includes accents that change even within towns themselves. It causes weird council problems as some are under umbrella organisations like transport and police that are for the entire Greater Manchester area, but then planning, highways etc are under local control. In the greater Manchester area you also have metropolitan boroughs inside it, which is also adds confusion.

[@musAKulture]

exactly. the chinese regions experience this exact same problem; people speaking near-mutually-unintelligible dialects, had historical conflicts, not to mention the admin systems...

[@jaybeetee5272]

Ottawa and Montreal are getting closer together. I'm waiting for them to touch. The outer Gatineau burbs and the outer Laval burbs aren't really that far apart. I do wonder how the pandemic will affect this too. I know you mainly talked about it happening in the developing world, but as a larger chunk of the population transitions to teleworking, there will be less need to live in cities.

[@ethanrobertson560]

Appreciated the Star Wars references hopefully there's more in future vids

[@maxglendale]

The Greater Golden Horseshoe in Ontario is growing at a nice pace (heading toward megacity status). The great thing about the region is that it is anchored by a relatively well functioning commuter rail system (GO Train).

[@zomfgroflmao1337]

Tokyo already was a merged city. Also you should have a look at the German Rhein-Ruhr area. Non of the cities is bigger than 1mio, but you never drive more than 5 minutes to get into the next small city. It is a very interesting concept that connects a mega city (transportation, job market etc) with less strain on pollution and resources, and even space for farming (lots of greenery between those smaller cities) or relaxation.

[@Fisha695]

Washington DC down to Richmond along the I95 corridor is starting to grow together at a relatively decent pace as more and more subdivisions get built between them. And it's slowly starting creep towards the East and the US301 corridor as well.

[@OutboundShane]

Maybe one day the Bos-Wash megalopolis will merge with the Piedmont Atlantic (Atlanta, Carolinas) megalopolis.

[@thomasgrabkowski8283]

@@OutboundShane and we can call it east coast megalopolis

[@joncowley7185]

Great video

[@juanamaya1982]

I'm from Tunja a little city in Colombia, I realized the size of Bogotá when I was younger, I felt so small, I had gone to Bogotá a lot of times but I'd never thought about the difference between the little Tunja and Bogotá, my mind exploted when I tried to get an idea of Tokio

[@kimetzfu426]

Could you someday talk about the transition of heavily industrialized city to a third sector city? (And because of proximity, it would personally make me happy if you mentioned Bilbao, but, you know, it is not really necessary considering the ammount of former industrial cities in the US)

[@KommentarSpaltenKrieger]

300 million people in one city. While I can imagine urban settlement of that scope, I can't imagine that such a megalopolis would be a coherent, unified thing. It would probably be multi-centric, with people far more focussed on their respective area of the city. Unless, one forces some sort of centralisation.

[@spencervance8484]

The entire us population or at least most of it in one city...

[@jugraphiawithrashidfaridi4046]

Great Video

[@juanfo7307]

I like that the video included often overlooked Kinshasa and Karachi but only casually mention of Delhi, Cairo and Jakarta.

[@xXVignettaXx]

hey city beautiful. for a few years now ive had an idea in my head about a city than had its entire road system (along with parking garages) underground with large skyskrapers above ground with huge forests surrounding them. I would love to see you attack this idea as critically as you can. Like invasiveness to the environment while making it, storm water run off, underground electrical lines to avoid powerlines etcc. I know it's a big ask but i thought it might also make a good video. I doubt it, but if you're interested and want to message me about it I have TONS of ideas about it because like I've said, I've been thinking about it for years.

[@pervertt]

Doubt if many cities will reach the speculated sizes mentioned here. Mega-conurbations are super expensive to service, and that's not even mentioning the human costs such as travel delays and lower environmental standards. It will be simpler and cheaper to build or expand elsewhere. Jakarta is looking to head down this path.

[@user-propositionjoe]

Tokyo: 'exists' Trees: 'am I a joke to you?'

[@allen7043]

I love that the intro screen is Detroit, love some appreciation for my hometown

[@ogerpinata1703]

I think that in such a case there will be multiple smaller "local" city centers and one massive city center. And as such, we would have multiple sectors sustaining themselves autonomously.

[@seasong7655]

This goes to show just how efficient the city planners of Coruscant were

[@benkallsen7593]

I use to live in the metropolitan area between Boston and new york, and its already a bunch of smaller cities all along I95. Each city is like a 30-minute drive from the urban centers at least speaking for the Connecticut cities along the coast.

[@potatofries571]

*Meeting someone new in the Northeast megapolis* "You what neighborhood you from bro?" "Boston"