When it's said that most people live in cities, a significant portion of that number are people living in suburbs near cities. A new map shows just how far everyone travels to get to a big city.
Jessica Stewart shares news of a new mapping project by the University of Oxford's Malaria Atlas Project, published by the journal Nature, by citing the oft-quoted-but-largely-misleading statistic about 50 percent of the world's population living in cities. The study's findings are more nuanced than that lede-friendly nugget: in 2015, 80.7% of all people lived within an hour of a city.
Other findings of the study including insight into the geography of poverty:
In some areas, like sub-Saharan Africa, access to the city is also a large indicator of wealth, with only 50% of people living in low-income areas residing within an hour of the city. This is in stark contrast to people living in high-income areas, as 90.7% of these individuals can reach the city in less than an hour.
The Malaria Atlas Project made its findings public as an interactive online map and data explorer.
Read the full story: New Map Shows How Long It Takes People Around the World to Travel to the Nearest City
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