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'Consuming class' in global cities endangers the planet
August 2, 2012, Thursday
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CITIES are growing in an explosive manner, unprecedented in both speed and scale.
Four million people from the countryside are pushed and pulled into cities every month. This is adding about one billion people to what is described as the global "Consuming Class," according to the 2012 report from McKinsey Global Institute, titled "Urban World: Cities and the Rise of the Consuming Class." The consuming class are those who steadily increase the purchase of goods and services beyond human needs.
The resulting challenges to cities are unprecedented. For example, the urban growth will require a 40 percent increase over current levels of water consumption or 20 times the water consumption of New York. The cost is estimated at US$480 billion by 2025.
Rising temperatures from global warming, which will be exasperated by the new consuming class, will intensity water shortages.
Consumerism, and conspicuous consumption, is a driving force in the emergence of the Anthropocene, a term coined to describe the current era of human domination over every species and ecosystem. The result is devastating.
The new consuming class ensures a decreasing capacity to supply the needs of the globally disadvantaged. The economic growth from cities has already reversed the 48 percent decrease in commodity prices from the last century. Now the rapid increase in commodity prices alone is certain to increase inequality and poverty.
This will not be accommodated by better city planning, something that is very unlikely in most cities. What is needed is to de-concentrate elite power in favor of more local control, such as participatory budgeting in Brazil.
(Barry Weisberg, global cities commentator for Chicago Public Radio, and visiting lecturer in the departments of sociology and law at Hong Kong University. Contact: barryweisberg@att.net.)
Four million people from the countryside are pushed and pulled into cities every month. This is adding about one billion people to what is described as the global "Consuming Class," according to the 2012 report from McKinsey Global Institute, titled "Urban World: Cities and the Rise of the Consuming Class." The consuming class are those who steadily increase the purchase of goods and services beyond human needs.
The resulting challenges to cities are unprecedented. For example, the urban growth will require a 40 percent increase over current levels of water consumption or 20 times the water consumption of New York. The cost is estimated at US$480 billion by 2025.
Rising temperatures from global warming, which will be exasperated by the new consuming class, will intensity water shortages.
Consumerism, and conspicuous consumption, is a driving force in the emergence of the Anthropocene, a term coined to describe the current era of human domination over every species and ecosystem. The result is devastating.
The new consuming class ensures a decreasing capacity to supply the needs of the globally disadvantaged. The economic growth from cities has already reversed the 48 percent decrease in commodity prices from the last century. Now the rapid increase in commodity prices alone is certain to increase inequality and poverty.
This will not be accommodated by better city planning, something that is very unlikely in most cities. What is needed is to de-concentrate elite power in favor of more local control, such as participatory budgeting in Brazil.
(Barry Weisberg, global cities commentator for Chicago Public Radio, and visiting lecturer in the departments of sociology and law at Hong Kong University. Contact: barryweisberg@att.net.)
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