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BHANUSINGHA GHOSH

out of a world population of 5,384 million in 1991, about 43 per cent lived in urban areas. Current projections based on the data assembled by the United Nations predict that by the year 2005, more than half of the world would be living in urban areas. Most of the future urbanisation will take place in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

One region of rapid urbanisation is Southeast Asia which is witnessing the development of megacities with populations approaching 10 million. Unlike European cities that developed to their present size as a result of a slower pace of industrialisation spread over the last 200 years, the formation of most of the megacities of the Third World has commenced only after the Second World War. Rapid urbanisation has brought in its wake a series of problems of health, sanitation, housing, waste management, traffic and pollution. Urban management in many places has been rather inhuman. The forcible slum clearances in Seoul and many other instances of