Shipping Containers
As demand for many products soars around the globe, the question is whether the world has the capacity to transport these goods to their customers. The answer, at the moment, is no. The vast majority of consumer goods today -- more than 90 percent -- is transported by ship, and there are simply not enough ports (or big enough ports) to support the current number of containers.
The urban world will need port container capacity to increase by two and a half times by 2025 -- the equivalent of 24 new ports the size of Shanghai's port, the world's largest. About 85 percent of the growth in container traffic demand is likely to be in the economies of emerging markets, where demand for many products is rising swiftly and steeply, already straining current capacity levels. The estimated cost of this port building boom is more than $200 billion. More than one-third of that investment will be needed in China.
Municipal water
Water is the most basic human need, and demand in cities is set to rise by 40 percent from today's level by 2025. An estimated 80 billion cubic meters of additional water will be required by the world's cities -- more than 20 times what New Yorkers consume today.
Expanding the municipal water-supply infrastructure could cost about $480 billion by 2025, including both the supply of water and the treatment of wastewater. Cities in emerging economies will account for about 80 percent of this surging demand for water, with East and South Asia alone responsible for more than half of the additional demand, and China another 22 percent.
The global economic downturn has delayed investment projects worldwide and created a highly uncertain near-term investment climate. But cities that under-invest in infrastructure and fail to keep pace with the demands of their expanding populations -- or invest inefficiently or in the wrong things -- will ultimately come up against barriers to growth. Indeed, growth has already slowed down in many of the world's megacities because they have not kept pace with population growth. Only by investing ahead, or at least along with the curve, can cities build a foundation for the productivity they will need once the economic gains from their rural-to-urban transitions are exhausted.
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