Growth of Cities Endangers Global Environment Researchers from
Yale, Arizona State, Texas A&M and Stanford predict that by 2030
urban areas will expand by 590,000 square miles—nearly the size
of Mongolia—to accommodate the needs of 1.47 billion more people
living in urban areas. "It is likely that these cities are going
to be developed in places that are the most biologically
diverse," said Karen Seto, the study's lead author and associate
professor in the urban environment at the Yale School of
Forestry & Environmental Studies. "They're going to be growing
and expanding into forests, biological hotspots, savannas,
coastlines—sensitive and vulnerable places." Urban areas, they
found, have been expanding more rapidly along coasts. "Of all
the places for cities to grow, coasts are the most vulnerable.
People and infrastructure are at risk to flooding, tsunamis,
hurricanes and other environmental disasters," said Seto. The
study provides the first estimate of how fast urban areas
globally are growing and how fas