Jakarta to Topple Tokyo as World's Biggest City by 2030

(Bloomberg) -- Tokyo will lose the crown of being the world's most populous city to Jakarta by 2030, according to Euromonitor International.

The population in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, will reach 35.6 million as it is forecast to add 4.1 million people between 2017 and 2030, Euromonitor said in a report. In contrast, Tokyo's population will shrink by about 2 million to 35.3 million because of aging, it said. Karachi is forecast to be at third place, followed by Manila and Cairo.

The population boom will bring challenges to Jakarta, where traffic was ranked as the world's third worst in TomTom's congestion index. Six new megacities, defined as having a population of at least 10 million, are expected to rise: Chicago, Bogota, Chennai, Baghdad, Luanda in Angola and, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Euromonitor forecast.

While cities from emerging economies are on the rise, those from developed countries will still be more affluent and remain key consumer markets in the future. The total disposable income of a developed megacity will be around five times larger than the one in an emerging market in 2030, Euromonitor estimated.

“Key consumer markets of the future will still be located in developed megacities, guaranteeing higher incomes paired with more advanced housing, health care, and transportation infrastructures,” Fransua Vytautas Razvadauskas, a senior city analyst at Euromonitor, said in a statement.

Other highlights of Euromonitor report are:

• 9% of world's population will live in 39 megacities by 2030
• Urbanization is taking hold in Africa and Cairo will emerge as the largest city in the region by 2030 with a population of 29.8 million
• Osaka predicted to be the oldest megacity in the world with 31 percent of its population aged over 65 years

--With assistance from Rieka Rahadiana.

To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Kutty Abraham in Jakarta at tabraham4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Linus Chua at lchua@bloomberg.net, Karl Lester M. Yap

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