London, England — Most of humanity will be living in cities by next year, raising the threat of more poverty and religious extremism unless the needs of growing urban populations are met, the United Nations said Wednesday.
About 3.3 billion people will live in cities by 2008, the U.N. population agency report said. By 2030, the number of city dwellers is expected to climb to 5 billion.
Without proper planning, cities around the globe face the threat of overwhelming poverty and limited opportunities for youths, said Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund.
"We are not ready for them," Obaid said of the arriving masses.
A revival in religious interest has been a surprising characteristic of rapid urbanization, according to the report.
Urbanization is often associated with a shift toward secular values. But the growth of religious movements — such as radical Islam in the Middle East, Pentecostal Christianity in Latin America and the cult of Shivaji in India — has been a primarily urban phenomenon, the report said.
According to the UN report, modern-day research has tended to focus on extreme religious responses that have gained numerous followers and hence are often lumped together under the rubric of fundamentalism.
'Yet, religious revivalism has varied forms with different impacts, ranging from detached new age philosophy to immersion in the political process,' it says, adding this was changing the political dynamics and social identities of today's global citizens.
'Rapid urbanisation was expected to mean the triumph of rationality, secular values and the demystification of the world as well as the relegation of religion to a secondary role,' it says. 'Instead there has been a renewal in religious interest in many countries.'
When cities fail to meet the needs of growing populations, religious beliefs tend to become extreme, said Obaid, who is also a U.N. undersecretary-general.
"Extremism is often a reaction to rapid and sudden change or to a feeling of exclusion and injustice, and the cities can be a basis for that if they are not well-managed," Obaid said.