like. people here love life. they love their country but not the current conditions. to run a journey through a land full of contradictions her joy and sadness. confidence and doubt live our documentary depicts the contrasts of everyday life. and help people cope with. iran bittersweet live starts may second d.w. . welcome to global three thousand today we're going to take

a look at life in cities urban centers are booming particularly those in asia and africa. the world's population now lives in cities a figure that's forecast to hit two thirds by twenty fifth and already there's a serious lack of decent affordable living space. one impressive example of affordable living is the. book the world's first social housing estate it was built way back in fifteen twenty one by one of the city's wealthy citizens to provide homes for those in need since then state run organizations and charitable institutions worldwide have invested in countless affordable housing projects increasingly the governments are distancing themselves from this social responsibility and they're relying on private enterprise to meet the need. this is my. way through

my. ten square meters cost around one thousand euros per month. not much room in here. and what about washing your feet in the shower it's pretty tricky. to do this. this. doesn't have much alternative right now it all started when he fell into a depression after. his divorce. he was to will to continue working as a catering manager and soon he couldn't pay his rent at first he camped out on friends sofas then he was homeless for a while before being offered a room by social services then he shares the rundown house and south london with

five other men the state pays all their rents. must be getting about five and a half thousand pounds to see almost coming close a six thousand pounds a month what used to be a true bedroom house this is only. three hundred pounds less than what i was paying for chewbacca housing back. this cannot be value for money. the british government pours around twenty five billion euros a year into rent subsidies a world record much of it goes on exorbitant rents like you sons some landlords hike their prices if they know the state is paying. free market britain has long neglected social housing hard to imagine it was once the nation's pride with around two hundred fifty thousand homes built per year. in twenty seventeen there were just three thousand left and that despite a rise in need the government has just announced

a new initiative but experts are skeptical demand they say is simply too high. the biggest improvement is the fact that people are moving out of london if we could make things better in the rest of the country people felt they were getting what they wanted then that would be probably a better if dealing with it. but in reality london's population increases by around one hundred twenty thousand people each year landlords can rent out flats fast regardless of how rundown or how she could they are but if you want three rooms you'll have to splash out up to eight thousand euros per week and those who can't afford that have to be flexible like emily and ben they're both employed and work in marketing but they still can't afford to rent a flat in the capital for a year they've lived on a boat and change moorings every two weeks to avoid paying fees despite this it's

a huge improvement on how things used to be. no shared accommodation for the people and we paid around one thousand one hundred for that yeah for a double room per month and then shared obviously bathroom and the toilets and it believed it was not even the living room in our living room was also a bedroom so you get a large one in to make as much money as they can on the property. and that's what the london renters union is fighting the newly founded association campaigns for unlimited when talk on trusts a cap on rents and more social housing they hand the landlords union a symbolic check for twenty two billion pounds which is roughly what the capital's tenants will spend on their accommodation over the coming year. they have a lot less i think than i thought it was more of their own and that's if you can actually buy land and i must secure it's a home and if we come back and see students i've known that the poor conditions even things are espousing was going to be different the city i don't think so it

was this funny city like that it was her brother. accommodation may be a basic human right yet in reality and britain tenants are second class citizens owning your own four walls has long been seen as the norm here and that means no home no castle of your own and you have no rights that's still the case today tenants are often confronted with the vermin and water damage and landlords who simply don't care that something jason knows well tenants here can be given two months notice no reason necessary he's supposed to move out next week but he's still hoping his appeal will be accepted and he won't have to leave. it's a struggle every single day in different ways because i'm devoting my time to sort this out and. of my other the other aspects of my life is being compromised.

emily and ben want to stay in london for work reasons they've transformed a desperate situation into a lifestyle choice they don't have a castle but they do have a boat the borg it cost them three hundred fifty euros a month it's romantic here and of course mobile usually anyway. last winter they can i was free saying you couldn't move so we ran out of water a or an out of gas like oil it was for yes so you've basically just got somewhere to sleep and yeah you've got no i mean it is that said if winter is the worst hardship they face then emily and ben are the lucky ones. africa's population is skyrocketing by twenty fifth a projection say they'll be twice as many people living on the continent as there are now and more and more of them are streaming into urban areas looking for work and better living conditions cities in africa a growing faster than in any other region in the world the population boom means

that in the next thirty years the continent will need around eighty five thousand he hospitals. three hundred ten thousand schools and seven hundred million new apartments but who's going to build them and how. millions of africans live in informal settlements like this one in p. dolly. populations in africa cities are exploding and the continent is struggling to cope. and architects from a wanda christian banana wants africa's booming cities to flourish when the settlements are on the pond way difficult to reverse those trends in front of the governments of rwanda is doing a lot of efforts to provide basic services for the residents of such neighborhoods to make sure people are living in safe clean neighborhoods but more citizen offical a first sort of the same challenges as well. from lagos to can shots or to nairobi

governments are unable to manage urbanization and those moving to the city often can't afford to build proper housing or pay expensive rent so slums. rwanda is well aware of the critical situation we are trying to establish different programs then you go from this social program but also morgan to i had to train to prepare the ground for the current would be governments and very much committed to promoting access to housing but recent housing projects in kigali were more suited to the upper middle class affordable solutions for the masses are still missing like many monitors training a future generation of african designers to find innovative sustainable and affordable solutions to the enormous need for infrastructure not only houses but hospitals and schools here in the northeast of rwanda a new primary school is being built using as much local material as possible. to local quality bricks and they're building their own reading nicely there's also

this idea that the basic materials in this for the destruction in africa cannot be built in america to it and you want. the thirty seven year old convinced the government that building with bricks volcanic rock and locally made roof tiles is cheaper than importing expensive materials and that it's worthwhile investing in local craftsman earlier more doors away people bring in conspiracy allies contractors to build things and lead haven't been successful so by visiting in these people there's a chance that this could be replicated also used again here and if this people were to migrate to other districts in the country it's much more efficient getting chinese conflict over turkish conflict as any man has studied in china where he saw megacities grow along with the challenges that come with them today he's the director of the african design center which opened in kigali two years ago eleven design graduates from eight african countries are learning here how to take on the

challenge of africa's enormous growth. we're trying to understand the real problems that we're facing and not just browsing over statistical data and say we need x. amount of housing but down deep i'm stunned at what that housing is for the residents of africa or those african cities often urban living or does africa but. for most africans urban living still means enduring slum conditions many managed says there's a need for this new generation of african designers to come up with solutions and it's going it's a strong belief that it means that we have the various charges in this country and in this continent to do things right at this particular moment can africa rise to that challenge christian ben a man and others are trying to make it happen. urban planning is a huge challenge how many cities can the climate cope with and what about human

health according to the u.n. and pollution now contributes to the deaths of. a million people a year so how can we keep the admin major population centers clean. cities have always had a strong appeal they offer medical care educational and job opportunities infrastructure and cultural institutions and other attractions is anything lacking at all yes nature but why do we need green spaces in cities. for food for example with so many people in cities it makes sense to produce food there urban gardening is popular lettuce herbs and other easy to grow greens are being cultivated on rooftops or in small plots. but not every part of the city is suitable plants that grow alongside busy streets are exposed to pollution.

urban green spaces can impact the climate cities account for seventy percent of global c o two emissions bad for the planet and its residents. green leafy plants absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. and trees and other vegetation help regulate the urban temperature they provide shade and cooling three that for ration. plants and unpaved soil absorb water when it rains heavily our rivers overflow. and parks are places where we can rest and relax. but we're not alone lots of animals have adapted to city life urban dwelling animals often have it better than their country cousins but only if they have access to plenty of green areas and trees. many wild

plants have also adjusted well to the urban jungle but they still require unpaved areas in order to grow. so green spaces in a city are good for the quality of life of all its inhabitants. in twenty ten there were already more than one billion cars on our planet and by twenty four could be as many as two billion and that even though congestion is already a huge problem in fact in some cities drivers spend more than two hundred hours a year stuck in traffic jams many chinese cities have major problems but alternatives are making a comeback. this is what beijing looks like some twenty years ago china then was called the kingdom of bicycles that planners had a different idea for decades they did everything they could to make beijing car

friendly around six million vehicles now clogged its roads and highways and the kingdom of bicycles has become the capital of traffic jams. then two years ago colorful. rental bikes suddenly began appearing everywhere all you need to use one briefly is the app and they cost less than thirty euro cents per hour so anyone with a smart phone can now find a bike practically anywhere i went to find out if the new technology is encouraging people to get out of their cars. to. mow bike was the first bike sharing company it launched in twenty sixteen and now claims to have two hundred million users worldwide and there's a bad deal at first there was cutthroat competition there were over one hundred

companies on the market and now there are just three or four left king and you're not making a profit yet but we're getting there bit by bit there are results in september were extraordinarily good i can tell you that much as i would have thought it or get some help with that. one of my first questions how much are the rental bikes really being used. to some muscle when do you rent a bicycle. to do yeah well if i don't have to go more than twenty kilometers. i might go that far most beijing residents use the bikes for much shorter distances for the so-called last mile from the subway to their office or home for the first time in quite a while the number of bike journeys is growing zone that's a visors the chinese ministry of transport on behalf of the german government does

stuff unified up that was the positive effect of all the various bike sharing company isolating them and officials started rethinking things in the cities and in city governments and it's a big discussion i many urban areas today all over the world the question of how we can get. well to enjoy riding but. most roads in beijing have a bike lane like this and we are going to take a look now and what condition they are. in. this one is nice and why then pretty comfortable to ride on even if there are a couple of obstacles along the way i just managed to squeeze past one car making a turn and there's another issue too many vehicles stop or park on the bike then you have to swerve into the car lane so a less than perfect situation. and

there are other negative aspects to bike sharing like the numbers of rental bikes cluttering up streets and sidewalks or storage is now often just piled them up onto what looked like scrap heap since. the bikes the city administration has cleared are now unloaded here on the fringes of the capital every major chinese city has bicycles cemeteries like this one the remaining rental companies have to take back some of them nobody knows what will happen to the rest. more bike is grappling with new regulations for bike sharing in this city seven hundred fifty thousand of its bikes can be found on the streets of beijing the government won't allow them to deploy more on peak days

their bikes can wreck up two million trips. here i think many new business models need a phase of irrational competition but in the future this industry will become extremely environmentally friendly and sustainable. every ride is recorded by the system not only knows how many of its bikes are being used it also has to be able to tell at a given moment where each is located just like. the way that all rental bicycle companies now have to install live monitoring systems that data from them is also transmitted in tandem to the government. but people like mr film even more importantly he collects bikes driving around the streets of john one town where beijing's young i.t. industry is located and loading them up. mr don't bring them back to places where

they need it. like subway stations john once one sees many young commuters and the subway is the hot spot for bike sharing the bike collector came to beijing from his village just a year ago he gets paid by the day for his labor in a month he can earn about six hundred euros that's about half the average wage. i've got back now and in the morning as the busiest time by then everyone is in their offices the bikes are all over the place. i fill up my truck every few minutes. our rental biogs really the solution to beijing's traffic problems to find out more i take a detour in the history. district as the city modernized the old town became a symbol for backwardness for the old and the poor who lived here bicycles were a common means of transport today the charms of the old town are being rediscovered

by young people and what about bikes this small shop wants to show the people of beijing that cycling can be fun customers can design their own bikes here to the i step go that you can take any color you want. if you k.c.b. a day see which one you like solo though did the case. you know what. some customers rediscover cycling through riding rental bikes they use them but they don't find them comfortable enough too small they don't have enough gears or only suitable for short distances and many rental bikes are in fat condition and are poorly maintained no one you know is after writing the until bikes however people decide they want to buy one of their own and slowly but surely the bicycle culture is reemerging my legal court so bike sharing has acted as a catalyst helping beijing residents rediscover an important means of transport from the past now all that's needed is

a sustainable plan for the traffic of the future. in creating an environmentally friendly transport system for the future a lot will depend on the efficiency of local systems and how different types of transport interconnect that develop has around the globe a busy looking for solutions with particular success in a few aiming at. getting the nestea that test lives in vilnius the capital of lithuania he doesn't need a car of his own he just uses the traffic. it pinpoint his location and supplies him with information on the most convenient public transport services available nearby complete with timetables and connections he can also use the app for a bicycle and car sharing schemes and he can pay for all the services via the app to. delay or test and it's especially popular amongst younger

generation. the app was developed by a local startup the team program to map that compiles and centrally coordinates data on all of the uses transport services including taxis. it's free for users. companies. google maps also use the technology. that's where the startup makes most of its money. it's now available in thirty cities worldwide from istanbul to jakarta to sao paulo. the reason to go there was to solve their problems in those megacities because we knew that transportation is some predictable on reliable it's even hard for local people to understand how this system works and we wanted to do a lot of that product and those big megacities to help to make it easier everyday life today. the authorities in jakarta gave traffic access to all the g.p.s.

data gathered by its public transport systems home to over thirty million people it's one of the most densely populated cities in the world there's no subway system those without a car check the bus the app provides detailed information the biggest challenge is to properly process the g.p.s. signals and very nice to show that on the map hol actually recall is more so and what is the. expected time of arrival to the bus stop so that takes quite a lot of efforts and we've been doing this for twelve years and we still keep updating and i'm dating can improve in delegate terms who does that. if taking a bus could be planned more efficiently more people would ditch their cars that's the theory anyway it remains to be seen if they really will twenty percent of people in vilnius use the traffic gap but it only has a population of five hundred fifty thousand and

a relatively modest public transport system. in the future cities control that was right there was going to be a lot of problems so city will have a platform where deal will be able to see old meant in the city and they will be even able to control that control parking slots control licenses who is driving in the city who is not to know and which is which not. logistic services critics might worry about privacy issues but the mayor of vilnius has no such qualms he has a radical open data policy and is already incorporated. profits did a pull into the cities or been planning. you saw the release date to. draw conclusions whether to invest more like for example to the saloons or to adopt some of the sunspots roads or to find some other solutions i think it's still an initial stage we're going through the future thing this kind of big data analysis

is a very important for any city without it i think. planning office research and suburban . although there is undeniable concern that the system can be hijacked for ulterior motives big data can help find public transport to people's needs. and that's all from global three thousand this week do drop us a line global three thousand d w dot com oh check us out on facebook. see you saying take cash.

more than just earning a living work promotes integration. workers are active independent and take part in society. but how do foreigners or people with disabilities join the workforce. we asked them. to learn about the difficulties

opportunities and successes made in germany in ninety minutes on d w. told. some time in the twenty sixth. my great granddaughter will be born. but with the world be like in your lifetime and around half a century. when i was there were three billion people if you will share the planet with nine billion. your world around true degrees warmer. inevitably sea levels rise by at least one meter a century. we're going to have some

climate impacts which are greater. it's really frightening ball trough we have to have. why aren't people more concerned. with the first. come from. come from.

one quite old venezuela's opposition leader and self-proclaimed acting president says some troops have joined his campaign to oust president nicolas maduro but the government disputes this and has vowed to put down what it said was an attempted coup and has responded with tear gas and violence against protesters. japan's

emperor akihito has formally stepped down from the throne in a ceremony at the imperial palace in tokyo quito is the first.