International. The increased economic power of cities around the world is becoming an unstoppable trend, as income growth and opportunity continue to attract more and more people to urban centers.
Today, more than half of the world's population lives in cities, and by 2025 around 60% of the world's population will live in urban areas. The urban population in emerging regions is growing faster than in the rest of the world. Cities are also the engines of economic growth and centres of economic activity; 50 largest metropolitan areas in the world produce about 25% of the world's GDP.
In order to cater to the expansion of urban populations, huge investments are required in new residential and commercial buildings, as well as utilities and transport networks and other physical infrastructure.
The Timetric Construction Intelligence Center (CIC) tracks large-scale construction projects across all sectors, and the root of a recent assessment of project portfolios in major cities around the world, a list of 50 "Mega Cities for Construction" has been compiled, each with a number of projects with an investment value in excess of $30 billion.
The combined value of project portfolios in mega-cities of construction amounts to US$4.8 trillion, and includes around 6,400 projects in different stages of development, from announcement to execution. Of the 50, 30 are considered to be in emerging markets, which have combined projects worth $2.9 trillion, while the 20 cities considered to be in advanced economies account for the remaining $1.9 trillion.
There are only two in Latin America: Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo in Brazil, with a combined value of US$124 billion.
London tops the list with total project values close to $426 million, just ahead of Dubai in second place ($367 billion) and Abu Dhabi in third place ($275 million). However, the Asia-Pacific region dominates the list, accounting for 25 of the 50 cities, and having a combined project worth US$1.8 trillion.
North America has a total of 11 cities in CIC mega cities construction, of which nine are in the U.S. and two in Canada, projects with a combined value of $736 billion.
