NEWS RELEASE

WORLD SHOULD NOT ‘GIVE IN’ TO MEGA-CITIES – OPT COMMENT ON UN REPORT

Mega-cities and large-scale urbanisation pose serious threats to the future of the planet and should not simply be viewed as the “default button” of development, the Optimum Population Trust said today (Wednesday June 27).

Commenting on the The State of World Population 2007: Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth, published today by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Rosamund McDougall, of the OPT’s advisory council, said: “The prospects raised by the UN report are genuinely frightening but it’s hard to see how ‘giving in’ to urbanisation, which is what the UN appears to be advocating, is the answer. Big cities are too often social and environmental nightmares where people are sucked in to crime or extremism and lose sight of ecological realities. .

“The UN report demonstrates not only how we urgently need to switch off the population growth engine which is driving these unprecedented levels of urbanisation but intensify efforts to channel development into rural areas and greener, less centralised patterns of land-use – something that urban elites have always found difficult to do.”