Cities in numbers: how patterns of urban growth change the world

Beneath the crude statistic that the world is heading towards 70% urbanisation by 2050 lie regional differences in demographic, economic and environmental change. LSE Cities' Urban Age programme takes a deeper look at the data

In 1950, the fishing village of Shenzhen in south-east China had 3,148 inhabitants. By 2025, the UN predicts, that number will exceed 12 million. Congo's capital Kinshasa will have gone from 200,000 to more than 16 million, growing over the next decade at the vertiginous rate of 4% a year (about 40 people an hour). Meanwhile Brazil's economic engine Sio Paulo will have slowed to less than 1% per annum, nonetheless experiencing a 10-fold expansion over the 75-year period.

Earlier this year London overtook its historical high of 8.6 million reached at the outset of the second world war, bucking the trend of many European and North American cities which have experienced only slight or even negative growth. Compared to other global cities, London is inching forward, with only nine new residents an hour, compared to double that number in Sio Paulo and over 70 in Delhi, Lagos and Dhaka. Nonetheless, London will accommodate one million more people by 2030.

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