This article looks at the most overcrowded city in the world and discusses companies that are playing a key role in managing challenges that emanate from rapid urbanization. To see the full free list, you can head over to the 40 Most Overcrowded Cities in the World.
Urbanization’s Dual Impact: Challenges and Opportunities in a Rapidly Expanding World
Around 4.4 billion people, equivalent to 56% of the global population, live in cities according to the World Bank. The urban population is projected to be more than double in size by 2050, resulting in nearly 70% of the world’s population residing in cities. The rapid pace of urbanization brings challenges such as a burden on existing infrastructure, and rising demand for affordable housing, transport systems, jobs, and other basic services. It also increases pollution.
Having said that, more than 80% of the world’s GDP is generated by urban areas, and urbanization, if managed well, can lead to sustainable growth in our cities through innovation and increased productivity. Several large corporations are already leading the way in this realm through their sustainable practices.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has been at the forefront of Asia-Pacific’s digital transformation. In 2014, the company partnered with the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) in India to transform it into a smart city and empower its residents with solutions to make citizen services more responsive and increase the productivity and efficiency of the government. Before this, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) had already created a dashboard for the SMC that provided an overall view of the city’s key performance indicators and also covered aspects related to citizen complaints, healthcare, and work on ongoing projects.
The IT staff in Kobe, Japan received nearly 40,000 calls a day during the COVID-19 pandemic, seeking information that needed an immediate response. The local government used Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s Power Platform to build an application that was capable of responding to most queries, except the most complex ones, resulting in a 90 percent decrease in calls in the following months. This not only resulted in a better experience for Kobe’s citizens but also helped save costs for the local administration.
Raleigh in South Carolina this year announced the adoption of artificial intelligence to tackle the city’s burgeoning traffic and invested in NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)’s Metropolis platform which is designed to make cities more efficient and safer through various ways, including effective management of traffic and smart parking. The city had long been working with NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) to analyze traffic and find ways to reduce congestion on the roads and intersections.
Under the new system, the city administration uses NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)’s DeepStream platform to get real-time data on the number of vehicles entering and exiting each roads, and then this information is visualized and passed on to Raleigh’s vendors that manage the traffic lights to ensure traffic flows smoothly without any bottlenecks. James Alberque, the GIS and Emerging Technology Manager at the City of Raleigh, says that the system operates with great accuracy levels of up to 95%. Hundreds of cameras are installed across Raleigh with sights set on the flow of traffic, parking utilization, license plate tracking, waiting time at bus stops, and even road flooding after rains.
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Methodology
The most overcrowded cities in the world are ranked in ascending order of the population density per square mile in these urban areas. The data is as of August 2023 and has been sourced from Demographia World Urban Areas. Note: This ranking is based on the urban area definition, which includes both the city center and surrounding suburbs/outskirts. Different definitions of a city (e.g., city proper, metropolitan area) may yield different results
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The most overcrowded city in the world is Mogadishu in Somalia.
1. Mogadishu, Somalia
Population Density (2023): 86,102 people per square mile
Civil war has ravaged Somalia for decades now. Several families from rural areas are fleeing to cities seeking shelter, food, and healthcare. More than 4.2 million people live in the capital, Mogadishu, with more arriving every day. With a population density of 86,102 people per square mile, the Somali capital is the most overcrowded city in the world.
To learn about other overcrowded cities, you can check out our detailed report 40 Most Overcrowded Cities in the World.
At Insider Monkey, we delve into a variety of topics, ranging from overcrowded cities to other business aspects in the industry; however, our expertise lies in identifying the top-performing stocks. Currently, Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology stands out as one of the most promising fields. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than NVDA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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