RECENT WORK

THIS AREA WILL BECOME A TESTING GROUND FOR MY CURRENT PROJECTS.

Watch this space!


MEGACITIES - A NEW PROJECT PROPOSAL

The worlds population is increasing by over 85 million humans every year. This massive exponential growth in humanity is most concentrated in the cities of the world. The modern human existence today with its technology based economic growthmania based ethics of materialism, self interests and conspicuous consumption has caused demands on the eco system which may already have started the irreversible destruction of the natural world.

Today more and more of us are alienated from nature living in urbanised societies resulting in concern for the long term outlook of humanity, for it is true that humanity stands at a defining moment in history where cities have become a dominant factor in the worlds social economic cultural and political matrix. It is estimated that by the year 2007 more of humanity will live in cities than in the countryside for the first time in human history.

This mass migration to the city is causing more and more cites to become Mega cities. A Mega-city is a city with at least 10million people, In 1950 only two cities could be said to hold this number of people in its district, they where London and New York. By 1990 there were 20 mega cities 14 of which were in the developing world. By 2000 there were 25 mega cities with 19 of them in the developing world.An example of the rapid growth of cities in poorer countries is Lagos, it wasn’t even in the top 30 of most populated cities in the world in 1980 with under 4. 5 million people, but by 2010 it is estimated that it will be the 3rd biggest in the world at over 20 million.

So with the Knowledge that Humankinds future will unfold largely in urban settings, this photographic proposal is for a major photographic project to document the different ways of life in the estimated top 10 mega cites of the world in 2010. The intention is to photograph life of the Mega city, the major challenges to over come and the achievements made and planed for in the future of these urban giants.

It is estimated by the United Nations that by 2010 the top ten Mega cities will be:
Tokyo 26.4million
Bombay 23.6million
Lagos 20.2 million
Sao Paulo 19.7 million
Dhaka 18.4 million
Mexico city 18.7 million
New York 17.2 million
karachi 16.6 million
Calcutta 15 million
Jakarta 15.3 million

These above cities are the cities I will be photographing with regards to their livability and effects on the natural global environment.

I am looking to start this project mid 2004 starting with Tokyo, I am especially looking for feed back from academics working in this field or Mega city planners, architects, environmentalist etc with information to the future of Mega Cities.

Any feedback on this proposal would be gratefully received.