China to Build World’s Largest City

China’s authorities are planning to integrate a major inter-metropolitan area into what will be the word’s largest city. According to the Infrastructurist: 

The plan will merge nine existing cities across 16,000 square miles of the Pearl River Delta — creating a new boundary that encompasses China’s manufacturing core and, all told, accounts for almost 10 percent of the country’s economy. Unifying this vast region will take six years and require about 150 “major infrastructure projects,” reports the Telegraph, including 29 new rail lines, exceeding 3,000 miles of track in all, with ridership accessible by universal rail cards…

The population of the new city — which doesn’t yet have a name — is expected to reach 42 million people. 

The new city would necessitate several major innovations in terms of organizational infrastructure. Never before has such a wide area or such a large population been officially integrated into a sole municipal authority. Never before have so many people and so much commercial and private demand been integrated into a single legal entity. not being a nation. 

There is concern China’s demand for raw materials will continue to expand at record rates, even as global commodities markets are strained by high prices and scarcity of resources and fallout from record global carbon emissions totals is already visible and intensifying. There are concerns the environmental impact of the megacity could also push fuel and food costs still higher, across the world, even as global economic recovery lags. 

The region to be integrated into the new megacity is thought to comprise 10% of the entire Chinese economy, and at 42 million people, has a population larger than Argentina. Some critics are warning that the engineering task is not only daunting, but will have hugely destructive consequences on the region’s environment, possibly further straining already intensely overstressed arable land elsewhere across China.