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Istanbul, Turkey (12.1)

Guangzhou, Guangdong, China (11.8)

Osaka-Kobe, Japan (11.4)

Moskva (Moscow), Russia (10.5)

Lahore, Pakistan (10.5)

Shenzhen, China (10.2)

Chennai, India (10.1)

Paris, France (10.0)

The century of megacities has already begun. From just two in 1950 and three in 1975, we grew to nineteen by 2007 and expect to have twenty-seven by 2025. Furthermore, in sheer size alone our global urban culture is shifting east. Of the eight new megacities anticipated over the next fifteen years, six are in Asia, two in Africa, and just one in Europe. Zero new megacities are anticipated for the Americas. Instead, this massive urbanization is happening in some of our most populous countries: Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Pakistan. New York City was the world’s second-largest metropolis in 1977, when Liza Minnelli first sang the hit song “New York, New York” (later popularized by Frank Sinatra) to Robert De Niro in a Martin Scorsese movie. By 2050, the “City That Never Sleeps” will be struggling just to stay in the top ten.

The story doesn’t end with megacities. People are flocking to towns of all sizes, large and small. Indeed, some of the fastest growth is happening in urban centers with less than five hundred thousand people. According to the United Nations model, the number of “large” cities—those with populations between five and ten million—will increase from thirty in 2007 to forty-eight by 2025. Three-quarters of these will be in developing countries. By 2050 Asia—the world’s most populous continent and still dominated by farmers today—will be nearly as urbanized as Europe.53

What does all this mean for life in the countryside? The world’s rural population is projected to peak somewhere around 3.5 billion in 2018 or 2019, then gradually fall to around 2.8 billion by 2050. Most of this rural depopulation will happen in the developing world, because OECD countries have now largely completed this shift. Take a drive through rural America. You’ll find it littered with ghostly relics of formerly bustling farm towns. The developing world is repeating now—on a much grander scale—the same emptying out of rural regions that began in developed countries in the 1920s.

If you’ve been adding and subtracting these various numbers, then you’ve already realized that the rural population declines are too small to offset the urban increases. The world’s total population of people will continue to grow substantially in the next half-century. We are now on a trajectory to add nearly 40% more population by the year 2050, raising our number to around 9.2 billion.54 Who will we be in 2050? In that year, for every one hundred of our future children and grandchildren born, fifty-seven will open their eyes in Asia and twenty-two in Africa, and mostly in cities.

What Kind of Cities Will They Be?

So the people of Earth are rushing into town. “The twenty-first century,” declared the United Nations, “is the Century of the City.”55 But what kind of cities will they be? Will they be prosperous or Dickensian? The best of times, or the worst?

There is certainly reason for optimism. The economic downturn of 2008-09 notwithstanding, the long-term trends all point to continued economic globalization, rising urban wealth, and a host of new technologies to help make cities cleaner, safer, and more efficient. It seems plausible to imagine the ascendance of shining, modern, prosperous cities all over the world. Take, for example, the success story of Singapore.

A port city situated on a large island at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, Singapore began as a British trading colony in 1819 and remained under colonial rule for one hundred and forty-one years before gaining independence in 1960. Since then, despite its small size (less than 270 square miles), few natural resources, and no domestic fossil fuel supply, Singapore’s growth and economic success have been phenomenal.

Between 1960 and 2005 Singapore’s population grew rapidly, averaging 2.2% annually or doubling every thirty-six years.