Megatrend Urbanization

All around the world, more and more people are moving to big cities.

What is urbanization? “Urbanization” refers to the expansion of urban ways of life. This covers both the growth of cities (physical urbanization) and changes in behavior of residents of rural areas (functional urbanization).

Urbanization is accelerating: the United Nations estimates that just under 70 percent of the world's population will live in cities by 2050, compared to “only” just over 50 percent today The urbanization trend is most evident in emerging and developing countries. It is predicted that 11 new megacities – cities with more than 10 million inhabitants – will develop in China and India alone before the end of this decade.

Click on the images for facts and background information about urbanization. You will find more information in our detailed fact book on the subject that you can download from the top right:

Increasing urbanization presents cities with enormous challenges.

In particular, rising consumption of resources and the fact that the capacity of the existing infrastructure has already been reached in some cases will make this a hugely important topic in the coming years and decades. On top of this come challenges such as the greater need for living space, rising energy consumption, expanding waste volumes and increased air and noise pollution.

Through sustainable city concepts, urbanization can have positive effects – and with its products and solutions the chemical industry can play an important role in developing such sustainable city concepts. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development states: “We need a change of approach – cities are centers of innovation and offer opportunities for resource-efficient infrastructure and socioeconomic change.”

What role does LANXESS play in this exactly? Click through our portfolio of solutions to see how LANXESS contributes, for example, to a sustainable city concept.