... everyone lived in one city?

7.4 billion. That's the number of people currently living on our earth. It's an unbelievably large number and it's impossible to imagine all of these 7.4 billion humans on one place. But what if there were only one city? What if everyone would have to live there?

 Well, currently 60% of the world's population lives in Asia, 16% in Africa, 10% in Europe, 8% in North America and the rest in South America and Oceania. Almost half of these people live in the countryside, which means that they're used to having a lot of nature and green areas around them. Depending on how many people we'd put into an area of 1 km^2, the size of the city would be different. With the density of Singapure we could fit everyone in the states of Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. With the density of Manhattan we could fit all the people in the South American state Ecuador. Anyway, people would live together really closely which would definitely cause problems.

Firstly, there are about 6500 languages spoken around the world and although English is known by most people, still not everyone is able to speak and understand it. Furthermore, people wouldn't just start talking English from one day to the other. They'd probably still live in small communties and keep up their traditional languages. The best examples for that are "Little Italy" and "Chinatown" in New York. Moreover, we also have to think about the environment. In a city this huge a lot of cars would be at one place and probably destroy the ozone layer irreparably. Also, waste would be a big problem. Everywhere around the world we have different habits about separating and recycling waste and we'd have to find a common base to start from. The next question would be: who rules this place? The American president, the Russian president, the British queen, some military government from the Middle East? All of this would lead to a big discussion and possibly even to a war. In the end everyone would probably just stay in "smaller cities" inside the big city because they'll look for schools, doctors and job opportunities near their home. Moreover, most inhabitants would never visit all parts of "their" city.

All in all, I think that we can be glad that we don't live in one city. That way we can preserve our cultures, historic sights and we can travel the world. What do you think about it?