Whether it stems from babies born within the confines of a city or families migrating into municipal boundaries in search of a better life, the world’s urban population is growing by 65m people per year. This may at first seem daunting, but population agglomeration can be a good thing. Concentration of services and resource allocation leads to a smaller carbon footprint, and creates conditions for growth. In fact, it might even be fair to say that urbanisation is a key driver for development, as per capita economic activity increases at least 10 per cent with every 5 percentage point increase in urban population. Further, for every percentage point increase in the urbanisation rate, in many places there is more than a 2 per cent increase in gross domestic product per capita.
無論是源于城市里出生的嬰兒還是源于為了過上更好的生活而遷移進城市的家庭，全球城市人口數量正以每年6500萬人的速度增長。這個數字乍看之下或許會讓人倒抽一口氣，但人口聚集不失為一件好事。服務和資源分配的集中使碳足跡減少，為增長創造條件。實際上，我們甚至可以說城市化是發展的一個關鍵推動因素，因為城市人口每增加5個百分點，人均經濟活動至少增長10%。此外，在許多地區，城市化率每增長1個百分點，人均國內生產總值(GDP)就會增長逾2%。