Tags: Urbanization, Population growth, Squatters, Developing world, Informal economy, Job creation

All the great cities in the world once began as shantytowns. The difference now is scale and pace. London, Paris, Berlin, New York, and Tokyo continue to grow, but the new great cities—Lagos, São Paulo, Mexico City, Jakarta, Delhi, Shanghai, Karachi, Manila, Tehran, and many more—are growing three times faster and nine times bigger. A 2006 UN report says that “fully 85 percent of the world’s working-age youth, those between the age of 15 and 24, live in the developing world.” So what’s new? For the next three decades we will have huge, churning new cities full of young people pursuing opportunity in the global south, contrasted with sclerotic old cities full of ageing populations holding on to what they have in the global north. Where do you think the action’s going to be?