Istanbul may already be big, but soon it's going to be huge. According to predictions aired byEuromonitor this month, Turkey's largest city will become Europe's most populous sometime between 2017 and 2018, overtaking both the London region and Moscow, not to mention leaving Paris far behind. By 2020, the city is expected to have over 16 million inhabitants, compared to 13.8 million in 2012.
These massive growth predictions are being fueled by Turkey's galloping economy, which hasgrown an average of 5.3 percent annually over the past decade, even as neighbors to East and West are stricken by slumps and war.
For the next several exciting, difficult years, Istanbul's challenges will be titanic. For start, there are practical issues with expanding a city that is under stress even at its current size. Istanbul's public transit system, for example, has long struggled to keep up with the city's growth. Much has improved: tram and metro networks continue to expand, while the new railway tunneled under the Bosphorus Strait in extremely tough conditions has finally delivered the city a desperately needed alternative to roads and ferries.