Canada has less people, even with a 10% increase in the last 4 years through imigration, some of which is from Indonesea presumably including a significant number from Jakarta, where the civil infrastructure must be epic
Yes, it's easy to build entire cities from scratch in a centrally managed society, such as a dictatorship or communist nations.
It's also easy to have cities grow fast, if you're primarily a rural/agrarian nation, and suddenly have a transition to become urban. This was (for example) Canada in the 1900s. Mostly rural, yet now it's mostly urban.
Canada saw fast growth of cities back then.
It's maintaining large cities once the fast growth is over, that is a different story. How will, for example, China look in 50+ years? 100+ years? When all its newly built mega-city projects are crumbling.
Alternative Link: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/jakarta-world-s-most-p...
Key Facts: Number of megacities, urban areas with 10 million or more inhabitants has quadrupled from 8 in 1975 to 33 in 2025.
Jakarta is now the world’s most populous city, with nearly 42 million residents. The current population of Indonesia is 286 million.
In 2019, Indonesia said it will be moving its capital to Nusantara, a new city which is under construction.
Article is a paywalled summary of the UN press release: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2025/11/press...
And the full report as PDF: https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.deve...
Canada has less people, even with a 10% increase in the last 4 years through imigration, some of which is from Indonesea presumably including a significant number from Jakarta, where the civil infrastructure must be epic
The West just refuses to build anything. Whereas in Asia its not uncommon to build entire cites from scratch.
Canada has been building housing at a much higher rate than the US in the last 2 decades. Not enough, but more.
Yes, it's easy to build entire cities from scratch in a centrally managed society, such as a dictatorship or communist nations.
It's also easy to have cities grow fast, if you're primarily a rural/agrarian nation, and suddenly have a transition to become urban. This was (for example) Canada in the 1900s. Mostly rural, yet now it's mostly urban.
Canada saw fast growth of cities back then.
It's maintaining large cities once the fast growth is over, that is a different story. How will, for example, China look in 50+ years? 100+ years? When all its newly built mega-city projects are crumbling.
> Canada saw fast growth of cities back then.
It still does—Vancouver and Calgary have both almost doubled in population over the past 30 years [0] [1].
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Vancouver#Demographics
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Calgary#Civic_...