Green thinking - Skanska

8 Green thinking Green thinking 9What happens when moreand more people move to biggerand bigger cities?Even faster than the population growth is another process.More people are moving to cities, which are growing everlarger. For the first time in world history, more people live incities than in the country. And that trend is not going away.By 2030 we expect that 60 percent of the world’s populationwill live in cities*, and the big cities will only get bigger.This doesn’t mean fewer people will live in rural areas. Inmore developed countries, the population outside cities maydecrease somewhat, but in less developed countries, the populationin the countryside will continue to grow – just not asquickly as the population in the cities.These concentrations of people put enormous demandson Earth and our society. After all, it’s in urban areas that mostenergy and other resources are consumed. In addition, climatechange poses new challenges. An altered climate will meanwater shortages in places like Central Europe and the USA,while the situation in already parched areas will become moreacute. How can we avoid this? How will we manage transportationand shipping and reduce emissions?More people wanting more.How can we solve that equation?We can’t change the fact that people increasingly choose tolive in cities – but we can take advantage of the opportunitiesthat choice presents. If it’s all going to come together, weneed to find a path forward that lets us do more with less.Or as the United Nations report cited earlier concludes:“Given that the world’s future will be urban, developmentinitiatives must address the challenges and make the best ofthe opportunities that growing urban centers bring.”* World Population Prospects: The 2005 Revision, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division.