A cutting edge study by Karen C. Seto (Yale) and others on urban growth projections around the world and some of its environmental impacts (via Urbanization Project). Read a briefing of the study here or here.
Abstract:
"[...] despite projections that world urban populations will increase to nearly 5 billion by 2030, little is known about future locations, magnitudes, and rates of urban expansion. Here we develop spatially explicit probabilistic forecasts of global urban land-cover change and explore the direct impacts on biodiversity hotspots and tropical carbon biomass. If current trends in population density continue and all areas with high probabilities of urban expansion undergo change, then by 2030, urban land cover will increase by 1.2 million km2, nearly tripling the global urban land area circa 2000."
