HISARSCHOOL
JUNIORMODELUNITEDNATIONS2016
“SUSTAININGTHEFUTURE”
UrbanizationCommittee
Overpopulation of cosmopolitan cities and the effects on human
activity.
RESEARCH
Recommendedby:
REPORT
AslıhanBEJI
RESEARCHREPORT
Forum:S4-Urbanization
Issue:Overpopulationofcosmopolitancitiesandtheeffectsonhumanactivity StudentOfficer:AslıhanBEJI
INTRODUCTION:
Overpopulation not only affects human activity, but also it has a crucial part in the
sustainabilityofourfuture.Overpopulation is one of the biggest threats in the world which must
be solved immediately in order to sustain the future.
Day by day world’s population is growing and due to this growth people who live in cosmopolitan
cities are dealing with the effects of it. Because overpopulation, many people are being prevented
from using social services and they are being affected.
Governments take actions regarding this topic in order to mitigate it is effects by suggesting or even
enforcing family-planning policies. Especially countries which are suffering from overpopulation
work on this matter and introduce some new policies in order to decrease the growth. These policies
aim at raising awareness and controlling overpopulation.
In addition, overpopulation causes an imbalanced situation in gender proportions, affects economy
and natural resources. Even though at first, a populated country would fare economically better, we
can observe it is detrimental effects on the economy after decades.
Today there are many studies about the matter to raise awareness all around the world and small
children are also being educated about the issue. Many relevant organizations have been founded and
still they continue to start campaigns, take action on this matter.
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DEFINITON OF KEY TERMS:
Overpopulation: The condition of being populated with excessively large numbers.
Cosmopolitan Cities: Including people from many different countries.
Cosmopolitan cities host people from many different countries. The main reason why international
people live in these cities is mainly due to job opportunities. There are many cosmopolitan cities
such as: Shanghai, Istanbul, Tokyo, Paris, New York.
Census: An official count or survey, especially of a population.
This official count aims at finding out the number of people who live in a particular area and helps us
to observe the population changes through decades.
Social Services: Government services provided for the benefit of the community, such as
education, medical care, and housing.
Governments are required to provide some social services to people and in some cities because of
overpopulation people may not be able to use these social services whenever they want to.
GENERAL OVERVIEW:
According to the graph, which is taken from U.S. Census Bureau it is shown that each day world’s
population is growing. If we look at the map on the right we can see that especially cities like New
York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Moscow are the most-populated ones. Continuously, these
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cities are taking immigrants and their populations are growing. Soon, these cities won’t be able to
support people who are dealing problems about the social services, transportation and housing.
EFFECTS OF OVERPOPULATION IN COSMOPOLITAN CITIES:
1. Restriction:
Because of overpopulation, governments sometimes put restrictions in order to keep the balance in
the usage of resources. These restrictions usually are about the resources such as water consumption,
electricity. This situation affects the human activity and also makes people live in restrictions for a
particular time.
2. Transportation:
In big cosmopolitan cities such as Moscow, New York and Tokyo transportation is one of the biggest
problems. In these overpopulated cities, it’s hard to transport in the city due to traffic. Governments
are encouraging people to use public transportation in order to control the traffic.
3. Health Issues:
According to The Center of Biological Diversity’s Studies, the usage of private cars –especially in
cosmopolitan cities- increases the greenhouse gas emission. Consequently, an increase in health
issues may be observed.
More facts can be given as effects of overpopulation; these are only the main ones. After people
started suffering, governments decided to take action on this matter. Today, there are many
campaigns which aim at raising awareness and governments are trying to control overpopulation by
creating new family-planning policies.
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MAJOR PARTIES INVOLVED AND THEIR VIEWS:
PR. CHINA:
After the establishment of China -in 1949- the government encouraged people to have more children.
This policy succeeded but short lived. Few years later, population was doubled and this increase in
population caused a big problem in the society. Many people died because of starvation and
exposure. Today China is the most populated country in the world and after this event, China
followed a new policy named ‘Family-Planning’. With this policy, new marriage ages were set for
both gender and they were encouraged to have no more than one children. However, this policy did
not succeed since people were not able to adapt.
TURKEY:
Turkey has an unofficial policy named: ‘3 Children’ which encourages women to have at least 3
children. This policy is aimed at increasing population in Turkey. Today, Turkey is in the first 20
most populated country list with approximately 79 million people.
JAPAN:
Despite the fact that, Japan is in the first 20 most populated countries list with approximately 126
million people, life standards in Japan are improved and therefore they are not affected much by
overpopulation. Also, their social services are improved and highly-qualified jobs are offered to
people.
INDIA:
Currently, India is the second most populated country in the world. Because of the overpopulation
many people are being prevented from using the social services and they experience problems when
they look for jobs. It can be observed that overpopulation affects the human activity.
EVALUATION OF PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS TO RESOLVE THE ISSUE:
• Family Planning:
China’s government came up with a policy named: ‘Family-Planning’ which aimed at controlling the
population growth. However, they had to change their policy since it failed. China made some
changes in the policy and set new limits. The reason why the old policy failed was because people
were not able to adapt. In addition, there has been an increase in children who do not have ID cards
due to this limit.
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•
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change:
In 1922, countries cooperated and joined this treaty in order to lessen one of the effects of
overpopulation: climate change. This convention aimed to combat climate change and
currently 197 Parties joined the convention.
TIMELINE OF EVENTS:
Countries cooperated and joined conventions in order to lessen the effects of overpopulation.
Most of these agreements were about environment.
1922
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
1978-1980
Introduction of China Family Planning Policy
December 1997
Kyoto Protocol
December 2015
Paris Agreement
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS:
• Raising Awareness and Better Education:
Raising awareness about this matter and improving life standards in underpopulated cities could be
some of the effective solutions for this issue. First of all, to control this growth people need to know
the harms of overpopulation, how it affects human activity and which health issues it may cause.
Young children and teens can be educated about this issue in schools in order to raise awareness.
• Improving Life Standards:
In addition, if governments can improve the life standards and offer job opportunities in
underpopulated cities people will stop emigrating to bigger cities. This will prevent overpopulation
in some big particular areas and help maintaining the balance of population between cities. If the
balance can be maintained, emigrations will stop and life standards will be improved in the country.
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