The main problem with Chengdus growth, as well as that of all of Chinas urban centers, is the

mentality of growth for growths sake, which emphasizes buildings and statistics over people and
ideas. What Chinas city planners need to understand is that a city exists to unite and inspire its
people to engage in creative endeavors that would better themselves and their city.

By choosing rapid and vapid urbanization, Chengdu is losing its identity and character, and becoming
a lesser version of Beijing a tense conflict between buildings and people, a conflict which has
alienated everyone from each other and himself.

Many of the traditional cities, such as New York City and Los Angeles, were not built to hold so many
citizens, and are faced with countless issues of how and where to expand to accommodate their
increasing populations. Sanitation, crime, and poverty are severe issues a megacity must face, and
few have found sufficient ways to deal with these problems. But possibly the greatest challenge a
megacity will face is the development of slums or shanty-towns along the border of the developed
city.
The modern megacity is hardly restricted to wealthy countries such as the United States; in fact they
are more common in countries where there is a tremendous economic division between the rich and
the poor. Consequently, people who desperately need work only available in the city cannot afford
to live there, and are forced to live in unsafe, inexpensive slums. Slum areas are typically hotbeds of
crime and severe sanitation problems, leading to extremely high mortality rates and the danger of
fast-spreading diseases. Since many slums are also built illegally, they leave residents in severe
danger in the wake of natural disasters such as earthquakes or floods.
Key questions to be addressed include whether it will be possible to continually meet the everyday
needs of food, water and health and also deal with the growing vulnerability of megacities to
environmental stresses exacerbated by the effects of climate change.
The associated increased carbon emissions are contributing to global warming and pose their own
climate risks.
The larger the urban area, the greater the damage that natural hazards can inflict.
Megacities pose serious health challenge
many cities in developing countries are expanding rapidly with poor planning and few pollutionreduction measures
there will be very little water left to support people as there is an increasing population of people
and they need water in order to survive. Thus a huge amount of water would be drunk by people.
Energy wastage
The environmental problems are big; water shortages, chaos in traffic, poor air quality and gigantic
piles of garbage are just a few of them