Gaza is not too crowded
There's a useful corrective here to the lie that Gaza is the most crowded place on Earth:
The UK politician George Galloway wrote in The Glasgow Record last month that the Gaza Strip is "the most densely populated piece of earth on the planet." Galloway wrote that 1.5 million Palestinians live there.But this isn't even as crowded as Tel Aviv. Gaza had plenty of problems. But they are nothing - nothing - to do with population density:Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian journalist currently teaching at Princeton, wrote March 26 that Gaza is "one of the most densely populated places on earth, with 3,823 people per square kilometre." Kuttab's figure is in line with recent Gaza population estimates of 1.4 million.
If Galloway's estimate of 1.5 million Gaza population is correct, this is almost 4,200 people per square kilometer. The Central Intelligence Agency projects that the Gaza population will reach 1,537,269 in July. This would bring the density to 4,270 people per square kilometer.
Both Singapore and Hong Kong have more than 6,000 people per square kilometer. Tel Aviv has more than 7,000 people per square kilometer. If you count the suburbs of Tel Aviv, the metropolitan area with its population of 2.3 million has a density of more than 5,000 people per square kilometer, which is considerably more crowded than the Gaza Strip as reckoned by Galloway or Kuttab or the CIA.Selected estimates of population density:
Mumbai
27,209 people/sq km
http://www.mcgm.gov.in/Kolkata
24,000 people/sq km
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KolkataTel Aviv
7,445 people/sq km
(385,000 people, 51.8 sq km)Hong Kong
6,352 people/sq km
http://www.gov.hk/en/about/abouthk/factsheets/docs/population.pdfSingapore
6,252 people/sq km
http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/keyind.htmlLondon
5,100 people/sq kmTel Aviv metro area including suburbs
5,050 people/sq km
(2.3 million people, 453 sq km)Moscow
4,900 people/sq kmTokyo/Yokahama
4,750 people/sq kmWarsaw
4,300 people/sq kmGaza Strip per CIA projection
4,270 people/sq km
(1,537,269 population July 2008, 360 sq km)Gaza Strip per George Galloway
4,167 people/sq km
(1.5 million people, 360 sq km)Gaza Strip per Daoud Kuttab
3,822 people/sq kmThe numbers for London, Tel Aviv metro area, Moscow, Tokyo/Yokohama and Warsaw are from the City Mayors site.
http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/largest-cities-density-125.html
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John Ware
April 24th, 2008 3:44pmwhat is the point of this?
to suggest that conditions in Gaza are not that bad? that life in Tel Aviv is worse? or what?
John West
April 24th, 2008 9:22pmThe town of Isla Vista, which abuts the handsome seaside campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara, has a population density of 8635.22 people per square mile (3340.9 per square kilometer), with many students sharing apartments. This is not so very different from David Kuttab's figure for Gaza's population density. However, it should be noted that, for all its upscale location, Isla Vista strikes the visitor as very crowded and noisy. Moreover, a significant portion of Gaza is agricultural land, and some of it is beach and dunes, whereas the other locations listed in the table are cities. So the housing situation there may be worse than what's implied by the total land area.
Brad Brzezinski
April 24th, 2008 10:11pmGeorge Galloway also still refers to the Jenin Massacre. He’s a fibber.
And the point, John unaWare is that the entire narrative regarding the plight of the Palestinians is filled with lies and exaggeration. We've all seen pictures of real starving people in Africa. You do not see pictures of Palestinians that look remotely like that. On every Human Development index, they tend to do better than nearby Arab states.
I'm prepared to accept that their lives are not as fulfilling as they could be, but when one recognises the manipulation going on in the descriptions, it indicates that the common perception that Israel is solely responsible for an imaginary situation is probably also wrong.
Lee Jakeman
April 24th, 2008 10:14pmYou have to feel sorry for the people of Singapore. With 6,369 people per square kilometre, you can just imagine the poverty, squalor and suffering that must be going on in the country with the 6th highest per capita income in the world.
Ben
April 25th, 2008 2:29amThe population of the Gaza strip increased from 180000 in 1948 to 350000 in 1967 to 1.5 million today.
Agricultural production was the mainstay of the Gazan economy, and the strip was famous for the fragrant oranges blossoming in its orchards, the stunning beauty of the date palm near the beaches towards the south, and the fine vegetables grown in its fields.
Today, the strip has potential as a riviera, and also as an agricultural area. But it cannot sustain the massive population growth of the recent past for much longer.
John
April 25th, 2008 9:28amPROBABLY also wrong, Brad? I wonder who is constantly shelling the civilian population of the Israeli towns of Sderot and Ashkelon - Israel or the Arabs laughingly known as 'Palestinians'? Answers on a postcard, please.
The Gazans need to do one thing, and one thing only: stop sending rockets into Israel, stop murdering the people running the Israeli fuel depots that supply them with energy (probably the only time in history that one country was supplying fuel to people actively engaged in a genocidal war against them), and generally make some effort to behave like civilised human beings instead of murderous gangsters. They could then live vastly better lives.
Tom
April 25th, 2008 10:09amStephen,
I normally agree with your posts, but you must agree the fundamental difference between Gaza and -most- of the places listed is that people actively **want** to live in such compact living, and the abudance of high rise buildings etc, means that 'people per sq km' is meaningless, if the average building in that 'sq km' houses 200 - 300 people.
John Ware
April 25th, 2008 10:24amBrad Brzenziski: to refer to me as John unaWare (implication:terrorist sympathiser or whatever) is just sick. I have known people killed by terrorists and I loathe terrorism.
I have no particular axe to grind on this issue, I was just questioning the purpose of this blog entry
catesby
April 25th, 2008 3:51pma bit unfair this one, Stephen.
Your figures are for the whole of the strip - much of which is farmland or uncultivated scrub.
A comparison of Gaza City with Tel Aviv etc would be fairer.
96% of the strip's population live in urban areas.
But the real problem is in the refugee camps. According to the UN, more than 86,000 live in Beach Camp, which is < one sq km.
So that's 20 times more densely populated than Tel Aviv.
Ann
April 25th, 2008 4:47pmIt is only a 'refugee camp' in the warped universe of BBC hacks and other leftie loonies.
catesby
April 25th, 2008 6:39pmNo, Ann
Unlike other refugee camps fitted out with with Poggenpohl kitchens, Neff appliances and Jacuzzis on the veranda, Al-Shati is the real McCoy. All breeze blocks and dodgy asbestos put up in the 60s.
The inhabitants are echt refugees too - Beersheba folk by lineage; Gazans by dint of the fact that History kept dealing them a crap hand of political leaders from the Mufti to the present day.