Cities:  Solutions to World Population Problem?

Posted by Sheila Redick on April 17, 2006

People are moving to cities far more rapidly than most of us realize, according to Stewart Brand of the Global Business Network.  And that is good news for stabilizing world population.  But now Brand says he worries about the disruptions of depopulation.

The effect of moving to urban areas, according to "The Empty Cradle" author Phillip Longman, is this:  children offer little or no economic reward to their parents, and as women acquire economic opportunities and reproductive cotnrol, the social and financial costs of childbearing continue to rise.

Even though the world's population doubled between 1962 and today, it is likely the last doubling we will experience.  Today 59 countries are currently not producing enough children to avoid population decline, and by 2045 the U.N. is projecting that the world's fertility rate as a whole will have fallen below replacement levels. 

Read Stewart Brand's piece in strategy+business, Spring, 2006.