Voa development report - Seeing Pressures but Also Possibilities in Urban Growth

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is the VOA Special English Development Report.

, more of us will be living in cities than rural areas. Population experts at the United Nations had that would happen by this year. Lately their estimate that in two thousand eight, for the first time history, more than half of the world population will in urban areas.

The United Nations Population Fund just its yearly "State of World Population" report. Researchers say billion people will be living in urban areas next . By two thousand thirty, the estimate is almost five . The fastest growth will be in Asia and Africa.

Poor people will make up most of the urban . And natural increase will be the main cause of growth, not migration from rural areas. The report says of more than ten million people have not grown the sizes once expected. Most growth is expected instead smaller towns and cities.

The experts urge governments improve social services and city planning policies. For example, report calls for better land use so poor people not have to live in slums. Today, an estimated billion live in these often polluted and dangerous environments. percent of the people are in developing countries.

report says the possible good of urbanization far outweighs bad. The task is to learn how to make best use of the possibilities. For example, cities can a lot of poverty, yet they also represent the hope for poor people to escape poverty, it says. " create environmental problems, but they can also create solutions."

The United Nations report says climate change will affect countries, cities and individuals more severely. Yet many fast-growing are more concerned with economic growth than with protecting against climate change.

On a separate issue, China last denied a newspaper story about a World Bank report the cost of pollution in that country. The Financial reported that Chinese officials persuaded the bank to remove they thought could cause social unrest.

The information said air and water pollution caused about seven hundred thousand early deaths in China each year.

A Ministry spokeswoman said there was no issue involving a from China. She said the report has not been yet. The World Bank said the final version will released as a series of papers.

And that's VOA Special English Development Report, written by Jill Moss. Shep ONeal'.

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