inhabitants, are one of the concentrations. Patterns of concentrations in megacities
are large in physical scale, focusing on a single center. In the process of rapid growth
and concentrations of people and economic activities in an area, socioeconomic
systems that support megacities tend to maximize their socioeconomic efficiencies
by centralizing the economic systems. One typical downside of this direction is the
lack of consideration of the balance between socioeconomic prosperity and environmental protection/preservation. To maintain the high population concentrations,
environmental burdens are produced everywhere on Earth.
Each megacity functions and evolves within the unique ecological environments
and socioeconomic systems of its surrounding areas. This affects the urban form and
the future trajectory of each megacity, and, as a result, we see great diversity between
and within megacities. Scholars have frequently used the concept of diversity as the
keyword for describing the general characteristics of cities. However, identifying
Fig. 1.2 Black Marble (Source: NASA’s Earth Observatory. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/
features/BlueMarble. Accessed on 3 November 2020)
1 Megacities as a Global Center of Sustainability Issues: Overview of the Book
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