Why the city? According to demographers, in 2007, for the first time in history, humans crossed the Rubicon—became a majority urban as opposed to rural species. In short, the twenty-first century is shaping up to be the century of cities. In their book, The Metropolitan Revolution, Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley point out that, in the U.S., while cities occupy about 12% of the landmass, they account for two-thirds of the country’s population and 75 percent of the nation’s GDP. And this city-centric growth is not only characteristic of North America but is a global phenomenon. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, cities generate more than 80 percent of global GDP today. Most impactful are the so-called megacities—approximately 600 urban centers—which, by themselves, account for a fifth of the world’s population and generate a whopping 60 percent of global GDP.
This devolution of political, cultural and economic power to cities is largely a function of the weakening of the Westphalian system. As Ben Barber puts it: “[i]n a world where states have grown ever more dysfunctional and the noble European experiment in pooled sovereignty seems at risk, we can say [that]…neither sovereign states nor the international bodies built on their foundation can any longer provide a reliable foundation for human survival.” The rise of cities, however, is not merely serendipitous, a result of the failures at the higher levels of governance. The scale of cities and the scope and nature of their responsibilities compel them toward pragmatism, which greatly contributes to their success. According to Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley, city leaders “do not tolerate ideological nonsense or political bromides. They are frustrated with gridlock and inaction. They bristle at conventional pessimism and focus on constructive optimism.” Indeed, Barber expresses it succinctly: “Presidents pontificate: mayors pick-up the garbage”; therefore, cities have become the most likely arenas in which “creativity is unleashed, community solidified and citizenship realized.”
There is, of course, a counter-narrative. Historically speaking, urban concentration and centralization have been accompanied by—if not always equal, at least opposite—centrifugal forces of decentralization. This story of suburban development is closely tied to technological developments in transportation, i.e. automobiles, and to social change, pace the building boom catalyzed by a chronic housing shortage faced by GIs returning to the U.S. after WWII. To cite a current example, advances in communication technology have facilitated remote work, a phenomenon that increased exponentially during the pandemic. Still, the global and national trend seems to be migration toward cities, and even “decentralization” bears the imprint of urbanization, as smaller and midsized cities absorb those looking for more affordable housing and as exurban areas incorporate and form new cities.