For the first time ever, we have more people living in cities than out on the land. For the first time, most of us have no substantive ability to feed or water ourselves. We have become reliant upon technology, trade, and commerce to carry out these most primitive of functions. Sometime in 2008, the human species crossed the threshold toward becoming a different animal: an urban creature, geographically divorced from the natural world that still continues to feed and fuel us.
What does the awful death of Jdimytai Damour have to do with our transformation to an urban race? Aside from occurring in the same year, what connection may be drawn between these two events?
From a macroeconomic perspective, the frenzied horde that killed poor Mr. Damour was, in its own mindless way, helping to build cities all over the world. Most of the items for sale in the Valley Stream Walmart were made overseas, by urban workers in the hundreds of Asian towns and cities churning out the cell phones, flat-screen televisions, netbooks, and other essentials of twenty-first-century life. Cities around the world have participated in the process of getting those products onto Walmart’s shelves.
A global supply web was needed to transfer the raw materials and components to manufacturing hubs like Shenzhen, Dongguan, Guangzhou, and Bangalore. Then, the finished goods were sent to the United States, very likely in freighters and steel shipping containers built in places like Geoje (South Korea), Nagasaki (Japan), and Ningbo (China). These vessels were unloaded in the American ports of Long Beach or Los Angeles before being trucked east to Gloucester City, New Jersey, for redistribution. From there, they were trucked once again to Valley Stream, New York. Financial transactions between New York City and Hong Kong, as well as Chicago, Tokyo, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Singapore, and Seoul were taking place. So every time a new flat-screen TV is sold by Walmart, urban agglomerations around the globe all win another little economic boost.
These invisible ties across the globe hum, the economic wheels turn. Consumption fuels commerce, thus growing cities, further enlarging the overall consumer base.45 The urban economy grows—as it
The reason that the world’s rural people are moving into cities is that they can make more money in town. This is partly because of the described growth of urban economies, and partly because demand for farm labor falls as agriculture commercializes, mechanizes, and becomes export-oriented. Worldwide employment in agriculture is falling fast and in 2006, for the first time ever, it was surpassed by employment in the services sector.46 And because every new urban resident is also a new urban consumer, the cycle is self- reinforcing. More urbanites buy more electronics, services, and imported processed food, prepared and served to them by others. More entry-level jobs for new migrants are created. More managerial posts are needed. Ladders rise and the urban economy grows .47
This urban shift is driving major demographic changes around the globe. City dwellers are projected to roughly double in number by 2050, rising from 3.3 billion in 2007 to 6.4 billion in 2050.48 However, the geography of this is not uniform. Urban majorities came to Europe and America decades ago, in the 1960s, 1950s, or even sooner. These places are already more than 70% urban today. This new trend is most dramatic in the developing world, especially Asia and Africa, the most populous places on Earth.
For the last two decades, cities in the developing world have been growing by about three million people per week.49 That is equivalent to adding one more Seattle to the planet every day. Asia is only about 40% urban today, but by 2050 that number will top 70% in China, with over one billion new city slickers in that country alone. Already, places like Chongqing, Xiamen, and Shenzhen are growing more than 10% annually.
About 38% of Africans live in cities today, but by 2050 more than half will. While Africa will still be less urbanized than Europe or North America today, this is nonetheless a profound transformation. When combined with its fast population growth rate, this means that Africa will
Tucked away in the back of a 2008 report by the United Nations Population Division are some stunning data tables.52 They rank our past, present, and future “megacities”—urban agglomerations with ten million inhabitants or more—for the years 1950, 1975, 2007, and 2025. The projections may surprise you:
1950
New York-Newark, USA (12.3)
Tokyo, Japan (11.3) 1975
Tokyo, Japan (26.6)
New York-Newark, USA (15.9)
Mexico City, Mexico (10.7) 2007
Tokyo, Japan (35.7)
New York-Newark, USA (19.0)
Mexico City, Mexico (19.0)
Mumbai, India (19.0)
Sao Paulo, Brazil (18.8)
Delhi, India (15.9)
Shanghai, China (15.0)
Kolkata (Calcutta), India (14.8)
Dhaka, Bangladesh (13.5)
Buenos Aires, Argentina (12.8)
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, USA (12.5)
Karachi, Pakistan (12.1)
Al-Qahirah (Cairo), Egypt (11.9)
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (11.7)
Osaka-Kobe, Japan (11.3)
Beijing, China (11.1)
Manila, Philippines (11.1)
Moskva (Moscow), Russia (10.5)
Istanbul, Turkey (10.1)
2025
Tokyo, Japan (36.4)
Mumbai, India (26.4)
Delhi, India (22.5)
Dhaka, Bangladesh (22.0)
Sao Paulo, Brazil (21.4)
Mexico City, Mexico (21.0)
New York-Newark, USA (20.6)
Kolkata (Calcutta), India (20.6)
Shanghai, China (19.4)
Karachi, Pakistan (19.1)
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (16.8)
Lagos, Nigeria (15.8)
Al-Qahirah (Cairo), Egypt (15.6)
Manila, Philippines (14.8)
Beijing, China (14.5)
Buenos Aires, Argentina (13.8)
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, USA (13.7)
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (13.4)
Jakarta, Indonesia (12.4)
Istanbul, Turkey (12.1)
Guangzhou, Guangdong, China (11.8)
Osaka-Kobe, Japan (11.4)
