Will South America and/or Africa ever get an NYC/Tokyo/London caliber city? (live, transportation)
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Obviously the history of poverty and underdevelopment of both of these continents contribute to the lack of such a powerful epicenter. But could it ever happen? Say perhaps Lagos and São Paulo?
Lagos is much bigger in population than Johannesburgh
Seems like the 5 most populous metropolitan areas in Africa are :
Lagos, Nigeria : 21,000,000
Cairo, Egypt : 19,787,000
Kinshasa, D.R. Congo : 15,628,000
Johannesburg, South Africa : 14,167,000
Giza, Egypt : 9,200,000
Lagos is only about 50% more populous than Jo-burg.
Ever is a long time, so sure. I can't see it happening in the near future though as I don't see on what economic basis they will be able to do such since they don't have particularly strong economic advantages over other places whether it's natural resources or major shipping and transportation corridor. This would be similar to Australia which also doesn't seem likely to have a top tier global city either even with the fairly developed tertiary education sector and government institutions.
Unlike Australia, much of Africa and Latin America have a large disadvantage in terms of education and institutions as their histories of the last few centuries and the effects of such are going to be pretty hard to shake.
I do think some part of Latin America might have a decent shot if there's a larger economic customs union though I'd reckon it would be more likely to swing towards a predominantly Spanish speaking city rather than a Portuguese speaking (Brazilian) city. That's a bit more difficult to swing in Africa as there's even less infrastructure and institution development and a far greater divisiveness of language without a long history of a civil society to work together through such.
Well Shanghai and Guangzhou is much more likely contender than Latin American or African citites.
With Lagos, Lagos is often referred to as the “Megacity of Slums, it has over 6,000 millionaires (and even multi-millionaires and a handful of billionaires) while a vast majority live below extreme poverty levels.
Well Shanghai and Guangzhou is much more likely contender than Latin American or African citites.
With Lagos, Lagos is often referred to as the “Megacity of Slums, it has over 6,000 millionaires (and even multi-millionaires and a handful of billionaires) while a vast majority live below extreme poverty levels.
Yea, Lagos has a very large population, but it's too much of a mess for that population size to be of much good. Also, as a country that's not very wealthy and large, but not stupendously large, it's role as a commercial capital but not the national capital also means that it doesn't kind of have that centralized hub that Tokyo, Seoul, London, and Paris have as the hub for all things.
I think the better bets for top tier global cites in Africa are the Pretoria-Joburg conurbation in South Africa and Cairo in Egypt. Maybe Nairobi. Prior to the most recent sectarian violence, Addis Ababa was shaping up rather nicely.
For South America, I think the best candidates are Bogota, Lima and Santiago at the moment which are pretty well put together and very populous, though traditionally it would have been Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 07-18-2022 at 11:35 PM..
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