Today, the most successful cities, like London, New York and Tokyo, are places of fancy food, entertainment, mating arenas (sorry – clubs) and opportunity for the aspiring poor. From Rio to Mumbai cities are the engines of prosperity, the places where people make the transition from poverty to comfort and even wealth. And the ‘death of distance’ engendered by the internet and the mobile phone, far from encouraging people to retreat to isolated idylls in Montana or the Gobi desert, is having exactly the opposite effect. Now that we can work anywhere, the anywhere we mostly want – at least when
...more
