And If Mexico City Seems Bad...

A trio of Third World megacities face similar problems

"Hell is a city much like London," Shelley once wrote. "A populous and smoky city. . ./Small justice shown, and still less pity." The London that impressed him in 1819 as a metropolitan inferno had just over 1 million inhabitants, hardly more than today's Bronx. Yet though London has swollen tenfold since then, it has been overtaken by still faster-growing hells: not only Mexico City but Cairo, Calcutta, Shanghai and others. By the end of the century, according to the U.N., at least 22 cities will have populations of more than 10 million,...

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