State of the World Population 2007: Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth

This analytical report addresses the challenges and the potential related to urbanization. For the first time in history, more than half its human population, 3.3 billion people, will be living in urban areas. Many of the new urbanites will be poor. Yet no country in the industrial age has ever achieved significant economic growth without urbanization. Cities concentrate poverty, but they also represent the best hope of escaping it. The future of cities in developing countries, the future of humanity itself, all depend very much on decisions made now in preparation for this growth.