Shrinking Cities

See any less traffic? Asia’s cities experience a significant drop in population.
Photo by AFP

Population loss is a problem not only for developed countries but also for the developing world, particularly in Asia.

According to State of the World’s Cities 2008/2009 of UN-HABITAT, Asia accounts for 60%, or 86, of 143 shrinking cities in the developing world. The continent’s population dropped by some 9.7 million people from 1990 to 2000.

The People’s Republic of China alone has 50 shrinking cities, which suffered a loss of 6.8 million people during the 1990s. India has 16 shrinking cities but the population loss was only 700,000 during the same period.

“The phenomenon of declining populations in cities of the developing world is relatively new, an emerging trend that is not yet as prevalent as it is in the developed world,” the report states. Population loss may, however, be a prelude to a trend unfolding in the entire developing world, where 143 cities lost a total of 13 million people from 1990 to 2000. •