More Urban World

The headlines tell us that the world is now more urban than rural. Surely this fact ought to have profound consequences that call for new attitudes and public policies. However, as is often the case with profound change, what actually is happening - and how we should view these changes - is extremely murky. From one point of view, the vast migration of people from the countryside to the city is simply the latest chapter in a story that has played out worldwide over the last several centuries. First in the most affluent nations of the West, and now in the developing world, as more efficient agriculture has reduced the number of people needed in the fields, the rise of new urban economies has drawn them to cities.