In pictures: The shrinking space in our crowded cities

Just some interestings pics from today's BBC's news page.

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The Gangtie Road in Baotou, north-west China, is filled with people on bicycles commuting
to work at the local steel mills. The 60,000 workers here produce 1.5m tons of steel a year,
an essential product for China's modernisation.







Commuters walk past a homeless man sleeping in a Tokyo street. Japan is of the world's
most densely populated nations with fewer than 25% of the population living in rural areas.







The makeshift huts in the shanty town of Villa El Salvador, Lima, Peru, serve as shelters
for approximately 4,000 poor families.







Coney Island Beach offers an escape of sorts from the crowds of New York City, the most
populated city in the state and the US.







The overspill housing in Sabah, Malaysia, contrasts with the country's reputation as
a tourist destination offering fine beaches and scenery.







Commuters in India's busiest city of Mumbai (Bombay) hang out of railway cars on their way
to work. Makeshift townships account for about 40% of the city's population.







On the streets of Sao Paulo, vendors compete for the cash of workers heading home.
Street vending provides jobs in a city where social conditions are harsh and a third of
the population lives in favelas, or slums.







Homeless women prepare to cook on a rainy day in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta.
Traffic snarls and waterlogged streets paralyse the city.







A Filipino family live in poverty in a Manila slum. More than 7,000 islands make up the Philippines,
but the bulk of its fast-growing population lives on just 11 of them.







The patchwork courtyards and casbahs of Marrakech in Morocco show that confined
urban space is not a modern phenomenon.

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