Richard Gottlieb

The Rise of the Mega-Megalopolis
July 13, 2008

I am just going to come out an admit it, I have become a demographics junkie. But no 12 step program for me. I love it. Why? Because I think population trends do a great deal to explain the past and predict the future. 

I was therefore very interested in some population figures I recently saw on the phenomenal growth of cities over the last 100 years. The simple fact is that the more urbanized a population becomes the more hungry they are for consumer goods. The more hunger for consumer goods the more toys that can be sold.

To get a feel for how much has changed over the last century, just look at the world’s top five cities in 1900 and 2006 as noted in an excellent New York Times Magazine article entitled “Inside the Mega-Megalopolis:”

1900

1. London            6.5 million
2. New York       4.2 million
3. Paris                3.3 million
4. Berlin               2.7 million
5. Chicago           1.7 million

2006

1. Tokyo               35.5 million
2. Mexico City      19.2 million
3. Mumbai            18.8 million
4. New York        18.7 million
5. Sao Paulo         18.6 million

To fully appreciate this growth, all you need to do is add up the population of the top cities in 1900 and compare it to any one city in 2006. All combined, the 1900 list had a total population of 18.4 million people. That means that Sao Paulo, in 2006, had more people that all five top cities combined in 1900.  

So, how many toys are you selling in Mumbai? What kind of numbers did you do last year in Mexico City?

It seems to me that we can trace the development of the toy industry in the 20^th century against the growth of these US and European cities. It only makes sense that if we want to grow in the 21^st Century we should be selling in these Asian and South American cities.

How do we go about doing that? That’s in my next blog.

Posted by Richard Gottlieb on July 13, 2008 | Comments (0)