The city has a ring of waste disposal sites around it. Many of them are fully unregulated and illegal. Basically a catastrophe in the making. This

The city has a ring of waste disposal sites around it. Many of them are fully unregulated and illegal. Basically a catastrophe in the making. This is not a problem of big cities as such but one that Beijing (and China more generally) has because it has only recently transitioned from a developing country. Indeed, modern sustainable waste disposal becomes more economical for bigger cities. They grow like cancer in the outskirts I'm afraid I can't follow your argument here. Land consumption is inversely correlated with density. Compare Hong Kong with Los Angeles. As I said in another answer, all the world's population would fit Texas if Texas was as densely populated as London. The tendency for suburban sprawl we observer around big cities can be counteracted with appropriate legislation. the quality of life is really really amazing I'm happy to believe this, but it's not sure this is scalable to and sustainable for the projected 10 Billion population.