Come stamp on my toes

-- By AD 2025, 4.3 billion people will be living in Asia, nearly 2.5 billion in the urban areas. Claustrophobic mayhem. There will be more people in Southeast Asia's cities scrabbling for vegetables than its villages will be able to squeeze out of a dessicated land.

Crushing demographic pressures, linked with high incomes and large industrial concentrations, are already creating giant environmental headaches in Asia's cities: 30 years from now is just a short step away.