Tokyo has lost its status as the world’s largest city, with another sprawling Asian metropolis, Indonesia’s vast capital, knocking it off the top spot.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, follows close behind with almost 40 million, while Tokyo’s population stands at 33 million, putting it in third place.
Cairo remains the only non-Asian city among the top 10.
According to the report, released by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, urbanization has reshaped the global population landscape.
Cities now house 45 percent of the world’s 8.2 billion people, up from just 20 percent in 1950.
The study found a quadrupling in the number of megacities—urban areas with 10 million or more inhabitants—from eight in 1975 to 33 in 2025, with 19 of those in Asia.
The report points to significant growth for cities like Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Hajipur (India), and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), all projected to surpass the 10 million threshold by 2050, when the number of megacities worldwide is expected to reach 37.
While megacities draw most of the attention, small and medium-sized cities—defined as those with under 1 million residents—continue to outnumber and outpace megacities in population and growth, especially in Africa and Asia.
Of the 12,000 cities analyzed, 96 percent have fewer than 1 million inhabitants.
What People Are Saying
United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Li Junhua said: “Urbanization is a defining force of our time. When managed inclusively and strategically, it can unlock transformative pathways for climate action, economic growth, and social equity.” He added, “To achieve balanced territorial development, countries must adopt integrated national policies that align housing, land use, mobility, and public services across urban and rural areas.”
What Happens Next
Globally, the number of cities is projected to exceed 15,000 by 2050, with most having populations below 250,000.
While rural communities continue to shrink except in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, small and medium-sized cities are expected to drive the next wave of global urbanization, spurring both opportunities and challenges in infrastructure, housing, and climate adaptation.
Charles Perry, a Republican state senator from Lubbock and the legislature’s leading water expert, believes that the ominous 2022 projections are too optimistic; he has said that Texas may face an annual water deficit of up to twelve million acre-feet by 2050. (The municipal supply used by the entire state in 2023 was a bit more than five million acre-feet.) “This is the only thing that we’re not addressing that is going to be the limiting cap on the Texas that we know and love today,” Perry said at a Water for Texas conference earlier this year. “The time has arrived. We can’t go any longer without somebody saying something.”
Part of the problem is the state’s antiquated approach to water policy. Texas follows the rule of capture, also known as absolute ownership, which allows landowners to draw as much water from below their property as they’d like, even if this has a negative impact on neighboring properties. Critics argue that the rule of capture incentivizes over-pumping, and note that every other Western state has jettisoned the rule, instead opting for an approach that mandates “reasonable use.” In Texas, where private property is regarded as sacrosanct, it’s been harder to get lawmakers to move beyond absolute ownership. But it’s misleading to equate the rule of capture with private property, according to Robert Glennon, an emeritus professor at the University of Arizona’s College of Law and the author of “Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America’s Fresh Waters.” “Property owners in Texas can’t prevent someone next door with a bigger pump and a deeper well from sucking groundwater from underneath their property,” Glennon told me. “Instead of a private-property right, absolute ownership is more of a circular firing squad.”
The rule of capture, once an obscure provision of Texas law, is now on more people’s radar after a fight over water rights in East Texas went public earlier this year. “This is the No. 1 topic, the one thing that everybody cares about the most here,” Cody Harris, a Republican state legislator who represents the area, told me. “Usually, it’s property taxes, border security, education, things like that. But right now, and for the last few months, it’s been nothing but water.” The issue came to the forefront when Kyle Bass, a hedge-fund manager who cemented his reputation by betting against the subprime-mortgage boom, in 2008, announced plans to intervene in the looming water crisis. Like Perry, he believed that the worrying projections in the 2022 Water Plan weren’t ominous enough. “Whether it’s a blessing or a curse, I can identify significant problems before they happen,” Bass told the Houston Chronicle. A proponent of what he calls “conservation equity management”—that is, increasing property values through environmental stewardship—Bass applied for permits that would allow him to drill dozens of high-capacity wells on his East Texas ranch. The idea was to pull up to nearly forty-nine thousand acre-feet of water from the wettest part of the state and sell it to the fast-growing Dallas suburbs. Although such a plan is perfectly acceptable under the rule of capture, and similar projects are already under way elsewhere in the state, East Texans bristled at the idea. (The Texas Water Development Board has concluded that the permits would allow Bass to withdraw more groundwater than is available in the area, but Bass has said that such an interpretation of his permits is misleading, and that it would be “silly” to take more water than the aquifer could sustain.)
When Bass’s application came before the board of the Neches & Trinity Valleys Groundwater Conservation District, hundreds of people showed up to the meeting. (In Texas, water boards can approve well-drilling permits, but have a limited ability to adopt pumping caps.) Bass was there, too. When it was his turn to speak, he struck a folksy tone. “I wear boots every day. I wear jeans every day. And I spend about all my time out here in Henderson County,” he told the crowd. “The state of Texas’s main problems are power and water,” and he was hoping to address the issue by “doing things that are responsible by law and by science.” He was followed by dozens of residents, most of whom spoke in opposition to his plans. (Bass would later call the crowd “woefully uninformed and uneducated on the subject” and “obviously very emotive.”) A gray-haired man in a checked shirt who said that he could trace his ancestry back to early Texas settlers called the area’s water “an inheritance for me and my family.” “Amen!” a woman in the crowd shouted. “The aquifer . . . it’s not going to be able to keep up with demand and it’s going to hurt people. It’s going to kill people,” the man went on. (A judge recently halted Bass’s well-drilling project, which is facing a lawsuit from local businesses. Bass has responded by suing to reinstate the project.) The furor was heated enough that it seemed briefly as if the legislature might finally reconsider the rule of capture. Harris has said that he plans to challenge the policy the next time lawmakers meet. “It’s the first time in my career where discussions have been at this serious level, about considering changing rule of capture,” Mace, of the Meadows Center, told me. “I’ve got my bowl of popcorn, and I’ll be watching very closely to see what happens.”
ENGLEWOOD — Metro Denver budtender Quentin Ferguson needs Regional Transportation District bus and trains to reach work at an Arvada dispensary from his house, a trip that takes 90 minutes each way “on a good day.”
“It is pretty inconvenient,” Ferguson, 22, said on a recent rainy evening, waiting for a nearly empty train that was eight minutes late.
He’s not complaining, however, because his relatively low income and Medicaid status qualify him for a discounted RTD monthly pass. That lets him save money for a car or an electric bicycle, he said, either of them offering a faster commute.
Then he would no longer have to ride RTD.
His plight reflects a core problem of lagging ridership that RTD directors increasingly run up against as they try to position the transit agency as the smartest way to navigate Denver. Most other U.S. public transit agencies, too, are grappling with a version of this problem.
In Colorado, state-government-driven efforts to concentrate the growing population in high-density, transit-oriented development around bus and train stations — a priority for legislators and Gov. Jared Polis — hinge on having a swift public system that residents ride.
But transit ridership has failed to rebound a year after RTD’s havoc in 2024, when operators disrupted service downtown for a $152 million rail reconstruction followed by a systemwide emergency maintenance blitz to smooth deteriorating tracks that led to trains crawling through 10-mph “slow zones.”
The latest ridership numbers show an overall decline this year, by at least 3.9%, with 40 million fewer riders per year compared with six years ago. And RTD executives’ newly proposed, record $1.3 billion budget for 2026 doesn’t include funds for boosting bus and train frequency to win back riders.
Frustrations intensified last week.
“What is the point of transit-oriented development if it is just development?” said state Rep. Meg Froelich, a Democrat representing Englewood who chairs the House Transportation, Housing and Local Government Committee. “We need reliable transit to have transit-oriented development. We have cities that have invested significant resources into their transit-oriented communities. RTD is not holding up its end of the bargain.”
At a retreat this past summer, a majority of the RTD’s 15 elected board members agreed that boosting ridership is their top priority. Some who reviewed the proposed budget last week questioned the lack of spending on service improvements for riders.
“We’re not moving the needle. Ridership is not going up. It should be going up,” director Karen Benker said in an interview.
“Over the past few years, there’s been a tremendous amount of population growth. There are so many apartment complexes, so much new housing put up all over,” Benker said. “Transit has to be relied on. You just cannot keep building more roads. We’re going to have to find ways to get people to ride public transit.”
Commuting trends blamed
RTD Chief Executive and General Manager Debra Johnson, in emailed responses to questions from The Denver Post, emphasized that “RTD is not unique” among U.S. transit agencies struggling to regain ridership lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. Johnson blamed societal shifts.
“Commuting trends have significantly changed over the last five years,” she said. “Return-to-work numbers in the Denver metro area, which accounted for a significant percentage of RTD’s ridership prior to March 2020, remain low as companies and businesses continue to provide flexible in-office schedules for their employees.”
In the future, RTD will be “changing its focus from primarily providing commuter services,” she said, toward “enhancing its bus and services and connections to high-volume events, activity centers, concerts and festivals.”
But agency directors are looking for a more aggressive approach to reversing the decline in ridership. And some are mulling a radical restructuring of routes.
Funded mostly by taxpayers across a 2,345 square-mile area spanning eight counties and 40 municipalities — one of the biggest in the nation — RTD operates 10 rail lines covering 114 miles with 84 stations and 102 bus routes with 9,720 stops.
“We should start from scratch,” said RTD director Chris Nicholson, advocating an overhaul of the “geometry” of all bus routes to align transit better with metro Denver residents’ current mobility patterns.
The key will be increasing frequency.
“We should design the routes how we think would best serve people today, and then we could take that and modify it where absolutely necessary to avoid disruptive differences with our current route map,” he said.
Then, in 2030, directors should appeal to voters for increased funding to improve service — funds that would be substantially controlled by municipalties “to pick where they want the service to go,” he said.
Reversing the RTD ridership decline may take a couple of years, Nicholson said, comparing the decreases this year to customers shunning a restaurant. “If you’re a restaurant and you poison some guests accidentally, you’re gonna lose customers even after you fix the problem.”
The RTD ridership numbers show an overall public transit ridership decrease by 5% when measured over the 12-month period from August 2024 through July 2025, the last month for which staffers have made numbers available, compared with the same period a year ago.
Bus ridership decreased by 2% and light rail by 18% over that period. In a typical month, RTD officials record around 5 million boardings — around 247,000 on weekdays.
The precautionary rail “slow zones” persisted for months as contractors worked on tracks, delaying and diverting trains, leaving transit-dependent workers in a lurch. RTD driver workforce shortages limited deployment of emergency bus shuttles.
This year, RTD ridership systemwide decreased by 3.9% when measured from January through July, compared with that period in 2024. The bus ridership this year has decreased by 2.4%.
On rail lines, the ridership on the relatively popular A Line that runs from Union Station downtown to Denver International Airport was down by 9.7%. The E Line light rail that runs from downtown to the southeastern edge of metro Denver was down by 24%. Rail ridership on the W Line decreased by 18% and on R Line by 15%, agency records show.
The annual RTD ridership has decreased by 38% since 2019, from 105.8 million to 65.2 million in 2024.
A Regional Transportation District light rail train moves through downtown Denver on Friday, June 27, 2025. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Light rail ‘sickness’ spreading
“The sickness on RTD light rail is spreading to other parts of the RTD system,” said James Flattum, a co-founder of the Greater Denver Transit grassroots rider advocacy group, who also serves on the state’s RTD Accountability Committee. “We’re seeing permanent demand destruction as a consequence of having an unreliable system. This comes from a loss of trust in RTD to get you where you need to go.”
RTD officials have countered critics by pointing out that the light rail’s on-time performance recovered this year to 91% or better. Bus on-time performance still lagged at 83% in July, agency records show.
The officials also pointed to decreased security reports made using an RTD smartphone app after deploying more police officers on buses and trains. The number of reported assaults has decreased — to four in September, compared with 16 in September 2024, records show.
Greater Denver Transit members acknowledged that safety has improved, but question the agency’s assertions based on app usage. “It may be true that the number of security calls went down,” Flattum said, “but maybe the people who otherwise would have made more safety calls are no longer riding RTD.”
RTD staffers developing the 2026 budget have focused on managing debt and maintaining operations spending at current levels. They’ve received forecasts that revenues from taxpayers will increase slightly. It’s unclear whether state and federal funds will be available.
RTD directors and leaders of the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, an environmental group, are opposing the rollback of RTD’s planned shift to the cleaner, quieter electric hybrid buses and taking on new debt for that purpose.
Colorado lawmakers will “push on a bunch of different fronts” to prioritize better service to boost ridership, Froelich said.
The legislature in recent years directed funds to help RTD provide free transit for riders under age 20. Buses and trains running at least every 15 minutes would improve both ridership and safety, she said, because more riders would discourage bad behavior and riders wouldn’t have to wait alone at night on often-empty platforms for up to an hour.
“We’re trying to do what we can to get people back onto the transit system,” Froelich said. “They do it in other places, and people here do ride the Bustang (intercity bus system). RTD just seems to lack the nimbleness required to meet the moment.”
Denver Center for the Performing Arts stage hand Chris Grossman walks home after work in downtown Denver on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
Riders switch modes
Meanwhile, riders continue to abandon public transit when it doesn’t meet their needs.
For Denver Center for the Performing Arts theater technician Chris Grossman, 35, ditching RTD led to a better quality of life. He had to move from the Virginia Village neighborhood he loved.
Back in 2016, Grossman sold his ailing blue 2003 VW Golf when he moved there in the belief that “RTD light rail was more or less reliable.” He rode nearly every day between the Colorado Station and downtown.
But trains became erratic as maintenance of walls along tracks caused delays. “It just got so bad. I was burning so much money on rideshares that I probably could have bought a car.” Shortly before RTD announced the “slow zones” last summer, he moved to an apartment closer to downtown on Capitol Hill.
He walks or rides scooters to work, faster than taking the bus, he said.
Similarly, Honor Morgan, 25, who came to Denver from the rural Midwest, “grateful for any public transit,” said she had to move from her place east of downtown to be closer to her workplace due to RTD transit trouble.
Buses were late, and one blew by her as she waited. She had to adjust her attire when riding her Colfax Avenue route to Union Station to manage harassment. She faced regular dramas of riders with substance-use problems erupting.
Morgan moved to an apartment near Union Station in March, allowing her to walk to work.
She still hoped to rely on RTD for concerts and nightlife, and to reach DIA for work-related flights at least once a month. But RTD social media posts have alerted her to enough delays on the A Line that she no longer trusts it, she said. To reduce her “anxiety” and minimize the risk of missing her flights, she shells out for rides — even though these often get stuck in traffic.
She and her boyfriend recently tried RTD again, riding a train to the 38th and Blake Station near the Mission Ballroom. They attended “an amazing concert” there, she said, and felt happy as they walked to the station to catch the train home.
A man on the platform collapsed backward, hitting his head. He was bleeding. She called 911. Her boyfriend and other riders gathered. She ran across the street to an apartment building and grabbed paper towels. RTD isn’t really to blame, but “I just wish they had a station platform attendant, or someone. I do not know head-injury first aid,” Morgan said.
The train they’d been waiting for came and went. An ambulance arrived. They got home late, the evening ruined, she said.
“His head cracked open. He had skin flaps hanging off his head. This was stuck in my head, at least for the rest of the night.”
Immigration and intermarriage are helping the D.C. region become more diverse, experts said.
This story is Part 1 of WTOP’s three-part series “On the Move: The D.C. region’s population trends.”
Immigration and intermarriage are helping the D.C. region become more diverse, experts said.
According to a WTOP analysis of recent census data, neighborhoods across D.C., Maryland and Virginia are all reporting increases in their Hispanic and Asian populations.
In D.C. and Maryland specifically, immigration is the only factor preventing a population decline, according to Michael Bader, director of the 21st Century Cities Initiative at Johns Hopkins University.
From July 1, 2023 to July 1, 2024, D.C. reported an additional 3,475 people who identify as Asian and 4,514 more people who identify as Hispanic.
Over that same period in Montgomery County, Maryland, there were 1,746 more people who identify as Asian and 1,723 more people who identify as Hispanic. Nearby Prince George’s County added 1,235 people who identify as Asian and almost 10,000 people identifying as Hispanic.
In Fairfax County, Virginia, there were 4,757 more people who identify as Hispanic and 6,851 more people who identify as Asian. Prince William and Loudoun counties both reported increases as well.
“Immigration is really fascinating,” said Hamilton Lombard, a demographer at the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center. “The level of immigration we had, it’s hard to say that’s going to continue its influence. When you look at some of the race ethnicity data, immigrants were heavily coming in from Latin America, some are from Asia. That’s really where you see growth.”
There’s been a “large influx of Latinos” into Maryland, especially from Central America, Bader said. People coming from Central America tend to be younger, and they’re at the time of their lives when they’re more likely to have kids.
“The region is likely to continue to become increasingly more racially diverse,” Bader said.
“I do have concerns and curiosity about how the population will change with the current federal administration policies, both related to immigration, but also changes to the federal workforce.”
It’s going to take several years, Bader said, before the impact can be understood, especially because the 2024 data is from before President Donald Trump’s administration took office.
Meanwhile, intermarriage is contributing to diversity too.
About two in five kids born in the U.S. have a parent who has a different racial, ethnic identity than the other parent, Lombard said. So when the population of the D.C. region is diversifying, “most of that’s happening organically. Immigration is a factor, but it’s actually most simply happening through intermarriage.”
“When you look at race data for the D.C. area, you look at race data nationally, you notice this sort of incredible gradient where the older population tends to identify as one race or ethnicity,” Lombard said. “When you look at the younger population, increasingly, they’re checking multiple boxes, and that’s something we’ll probably see continue happening in the next couple decades.”
A lot of the D.C. region’s population growth is tied to “the record level of immigration we had in the last couple years of the Biden administration,” Lombard said.
“If you didn’t have immigration, the region’s population would be declining,” he said.
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CRYSTAL CITY, VA – Amazon, the online retail giant, has chosen to base its second North American … [+] headquarters in this Arlington neighborhood that sits just west of Reagan National Airport. (Photo by Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The Washington Post via Getty Images
The southern and western regions of the U.S. hold the highest growth rates, per data from U.S. Census Bureau, with cities in Texas, Florida, and Arizona topping the list. Workers searching for an all-around great place to reside might find spots like Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Huntsville, Alabama, appealing, as these communities rank first and second in the U.S. News & World Report’s list of Best Places to Live. Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina, followed by Boulder, Colorado, come in close behind.
When it comes to real estate investing, statistics like these can serve as a starting point—yet there’s much more legwork to carry out when choosing the best spot. The adage “location, location, location” still rings true today. It’s one of the most important aspects of the game, and the features surrounding the property you acquire will play a key role in its current and future values. As such, you’ll want to carefully note the landscape before making a bid. Use the following guidelines to help you begin your search on the right foot.
Choose Familiar Territories
If you’ve lived in the same neighborhood for the past decades, you’re likely in tune with its best features—along with areas that could be improved. Use this insight as a competitive edge. As you walk around, check for signs that indicate missing features. Is there room for another coffee shop on your block, or is the area saturated with cafes? Are residents having trouble finding housing close to downtown? The answers could help you spot opportunities to invest in a property or change an existing location to better suit the neighborhood’s needs.
Learn The History
Research how properties in the area you’re considering have been used in the past. Why were they first built? How have they changed over the years? Also review zoning codes or tap an expert who knows the local laws. The exercise will help you think about the possibilities for upgrades or renovations, along with understanding your limitations. There might be rent regulations in place, for instance, or codes that inhibit the way a structure can be modified.
Meet The Locals
When I started on the real estate scene 25 years ago, I was assigned a territory in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. I spent the following three months studying it and getting to know the people there. I talked to everyone from the small business owners to the building superintendents and the residents. I soon learned the spaces were set for a transformation: seemingly overnight, art galleries started popping up and replaced the flea markets that had been there. The new construction attracted additional amenities, including businesses and the nightlife scene, all of which presented incredible options for investors who were in the know and got in at the right time.
Check For Trends
Changing neighborhoods could present strong opportunities. In New York City, four new subway stations are opening in the Bronx. Think about the real estate potential around those stops. Retail values are set to increase, as shops and restaurants cater to the influx of foot traffic. The opposite can be true too: in areas where residents are leaving or offices sit empty, properties may not be considered as valuable.
When considering drivers for an area, check for tenant relocations and expansions. Tesla TSLA moved its headquarters from California to Texas in 2021. Amazon AMZN opened its initial phase of HQ2 in Arlington, Virginia, in May 2023. The company predicts the investment will generate 25,000 direct jobs by 2030 and support thousands more indirect positions in the region. Shifts such as these will bring new employment opportunities to the market.
Smart investors look not only at population growth, but also future jobs. Considering which cities have the most job postings can be an indicator of a growing market. Track new store openings too. Companies like Starbucks SBUX spent considerable time and resources to decide where to launch a new branch. Identify which co-tenants you’d like to have and follow them. As Wayne Gretsky famously said, “Skate to where the puck is going!”
When it comes to choosing a location, there’s little that tops getting out and walking the neighborhood. Use the intel you gather along the way to build your business plan. You can then share your idea with your partners or team and take the next steps forward. If you time it right, you could get a great deal in a prime location that provides long-term returns.
