This is the second edition of the Youth Supplement to UNFPA’s State of World Population. The 2007 report focuses on urbanization; the Youth Supplement addresses the challenges and promises of urbanization as they affect young people. In 2008, for the first time, more than half of the world’s population will live in urban areas, and the number and proportion of urban young people is increasing dramatically. Most will be born into poor families, where fertility tends to be higher.
Growing Up Urban profiles the lives of young men and women from seven cities – Tianjin, China; San Salvador, El Salvador; Mumbai, India; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Cairo, Egypt; Rufisque, Senegal; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Their stories give a sense of the lives of young women and men and the opportunities, pressures, and risks of modern urban living: as migrants who have left the countryside to work and make their home in the cities; as community organizers fighting for better housing and services in the margins of cities; as victims of sexual abuse and violence; sometimes even as perpetrators of violence themselves; as young women freed from traditional gender roles and discrimination; and as urbanites involved in music and culture to escape from urban poverty and insecurity, and to celebrate their lives.
