Military Review English Edition May-June 2015 | Page 11

MEGACITIES

(Photo courtesy of NASA)

The image of the Earth at night vividly depicts the city lights of most of the world’s major population centers. The image was created from
a composite assembled from data acquired 18 April–23 October 2012 by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite.

patterns of megacities worldwide is only outpaced by
the growth of their slums, which account for the bulk of
recent urban population growth.1 An ominous report
prepared by Swedish-based multinational corporation
Ericsson, titled Networked Society: the Next Age of
Megacities, forecasts recurring growth patterns among
megacities: high growth due to migration and birth rates,
large informal settlements and young populations, basic
infrastructure and public service needs, corruption and
lack of transparency, and a lack of empowerment for
poor populations.2
By 2040, several megacities are projected to have
more inhabitants than Australia’s current national
population of over 23.7 million.3 By 2050, 70 percent of
the world’s population will live in cities, with as much as
85 to 90 percent of urban population growth occurring
in slums.4 This is important to military planners because
future conflict will occur—as it does today—where
people live. In the future, they increasingly live in cities
and megacities.
The U.S. military has never conducted combat
operations in a true modern megacity, with the arguable
MILITARY REVIEW  May-June 2015

exceptions of security missions after 9-11 in New York
City and during the Los Angeles riots in the 1990s.
However, the military has confronted many of the same
challenges of a megacity’s scope and scale—its vast
networks and connections; its population of densely
packed, impoverished millions; and the twin ends of
improving conditions while battling a determined enemy
for control. This was the U.S. military experience in the
Baghdad slum district of Sadr City.

Sadr City
Although not part of a true megacity, Sadr City
replicates, on a smaller scale, many of the challenges
associated with true megacities worldwide. The tribulations of successive U.S. Army battalions and brigades
operating among Sadr City’s 2.4 million people may offer
a condensed case study of what awaits divisions and
corps operating in future megacities of 20–30 million
inhabitants.
One of the largest slums on earth, what is commonly called Sadr City, is the al-Thawra (“revolution”)
District of Baghdad.5 With an estimated population of
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