The rapid growth of cities is causing concern amongst experts over the effects of urban sprawl. There are 19 megacities in the world today, and 10 more will rise in the next 30 years, reports Marcus Moretti for Yale Daily News.
In the Aug. 18 issue of the journal PlosOne, a study co-authored by Yale urban environment professor Karen C. Seto predicted the "a major global expansion of urban land over the next two decades."
"The research team, consisting of scientists from Yale, Stanford, Texas A&M University and Arizona State University, performed a meta-analysis on 326 English-language papers about urban land expansion to predict the global increase of "urban extent," the fraction of land occupied by cities."
"'If cities are configured so that they take up increasingly more land it means that more people drive, as opposed to walk, from point A to point B,' (Seto) said. 'If you think about the implications of that - across billions of urban people - it doesn't matter how many emissions we reduce by switching to more energy-efficient cars.'"
FULL STORY: City growth worldwide intensifies sprawl concerns, study finds
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