Sunday 17 September 2017

And you thought central London was crowded?


There's a new Atlas of Urban Expansion published and New Geography review it - including this piece of information:
Dhaka's urban density has risen three percent over the last 25 years, as much of the additional population has been housed in low-rise, unhealthful shantytowns (see: The Evolving Urban Form: Dhaka), where densities are reported to be as high as 2.5 million per square mile or 1 million per square kilometer (photograph above). This is 35 times the 70,000 per square mile density of Manhattan (27,000 per square kilometer) in 2010.
The writer points out that Dhaka is an exception - most large cities are getting less dense. But nevertheless - wow.



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1 comment:

Nigel Sedgwick said...

From the original article (and as Simon quotes): 2.5 million people per square mile. This gives each person a 40 inch by 40 inch square, or a rectangle of the same area. Even with multiple story housing (so people can lay down to sleep), what happens when everyone goes out to work/shop/school?

Surely there must be some misprint in the numbers in the article? Wikipedia reports 75,290 per square mile for Dhaka.

Or is that Simon's point, phrased a bit too subtly for me?

Best regards