Population and Water in American Metropolises: Mexico, New York and São Paulo

Roberto Luiz do Carmo, Universidade Estadual de Campinas
Haydea Izazola, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana
Daniel Joseph Hogan, Universidade Estadual de Campinas

The paper compares the three largest metropolitan areas of the Americas (Mexico, New York and São Paulo), in terms of population size, growth history, density and age structure, and in terms of access to water, conflicts over the use of water, and distance from which water is transported, in order to: identify the demographic components of water availability as a limit to growth; call attention to the primacy of population mobility and distribution as central issues; assess the prospects of achieving balance between population size and access to water; and consider the case for ecological-economic zoning as a tool for sustainability.