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Politics
After ten million
A megacity used to be an exception. The public record now has enough of them to compare the planning, not the skyline.
Lagos · Dhaka · São Paulo · 20 January 2026
Once, "megacities" with populations over ten million were rare exceptions on the map; today, according to UN data, they form a class large enough to be compared with one another.source 1 Yet looking at glittering skylines or population tables tells us nothing about how those residents are actually housed. Data from institutions like the World Bank show how far official figures can disagree on informal settlements; a city may officially boom while the count of homes with actual services barely moves.source 2 What truly differentiates megacities is not the height of their towers, but whether their census and utility planning can keep pace with the people they encompass.
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