I think the most important reason is convenience. If you think about life, it revolves around needs. Basic needs - food, shelter, clothing. One needs money to buy things. Then one can also include, providing for a family and sending kids to good schools. Megacities, offer better employment opportunities and economic growth. This helps us buy food clothing and shelter located conveniently near us and the places to buy these exist in large numbers due to population. Better schools as well.
Moreover, man is a social animal. By virtue of larger populations, there is an opportunity for a diverse crowd with different interests to exist in megacities. The lifestyle that we are encouraged to live can easily be achieved in a megacity. Moreover, megacities are a sign on progress (actually debatable) but overall progress in engineering, wealth, lifestyle etc. So humans love to live there. And when we want a break we head to other natural retreats but then we are so used to a busy and active lifestyle that we get bored in a secluded place if we are there for a long time. Concentration of wealth and powr attracts those who find that life aspirational.
.... Convenience, exactly; for normal people.
Normal people require so much and that is what a magacities does. But if we go deeply into the spiritual and truly important for one human person, capable of creating things and at the same time destroying what is given, the sense of belonging to what is truly important is over; the natural.
Well said. I myself want to live in big cities because it always keeps me busy and everything is available when i want. And then i keep going away to a place amidst nature when i want peace and calm. I think when megacities go an extra mile, thats when i feel weird. Like pollution in india and china, which is a direct cost of destruction of nature that has happened to build big cities. Or fale islands and ice skating in a mall in dubai. That to me is crazy and unnecessary and makes me feel we've gone too far.
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I understand that some critical mass is required for a city to be diverse, but why do we keep adding people to megacities? What's going to happen after people oil, when the world starts running out of resources. Shouldn't we take ethical, but preemptive action to reverse the growth in our largest cities? Why do we need megacities to grow to 50 million? Couldn't 500 000 provide all those things you mentioned, or do we everything copied and pasted a thousand times over?
A city of 500 000 could provide you with all the amenities you need. You could have an airport, university, ethnic restaurants, yoga classes, and specialty shops. Ok so maybe will give up 100 story high sky scrapers, and the largest sport stadiums. Is it worth driving 3 hours in traffic, just to have a few skyscrapers?
Escaping the city to find adequate nature isn't a walk in the park. You have to drive almost 150 kilometers from Toronto, just to find a large piece of forest. Everything to the south has been heavily fragmented for farming and urban development. We are becoming extremely alienated from nature. We work 9 to 5, 50 out of 52 weeks of the year, just to get by. Most kids today, don't know what it's like to live with the land. They are trapped in the concrete jungle all their life.
Here's a photo of a traffic jam in China. Why would the rest of the world want to catch up?
Our ancestors use to appreciate the land that surrounds them.
Let's contrast that to a Ghetto in Bogota, Columbia. Over-urbanization sucks.
I think one reason is the the rich want to find a city they want to own. Countries like the US have a number of large or mega cities. But for smaller european countries, there is one megacity for each country, usually the political and financial capital is also the same in such cases e.g london in uk, paris in france. And most megacities will be close to sea or have a port near them.
Historically if you see, the rich people were the merchants who did global trade. They settled close to sea ports and most of the rich network built around those cities. Then as we moved to mordern times, more people started moving to these cities because of better employment opportunities. And people keep moving there because the rich never move. They keep occupying a small section of the city, for example manhattam in new york. Moreover, having an office in these areas, where real estate has gone through the roof is not only a status symbol but also the place is ripe for business.