Cities in a globalizing world

For centuries the rural poor have seen cities as places where they can find new opportunities, with the promise of a better life. For city residents, the rural areas have been seen as critical for providing fresh food, a clean and undisturbed environment to travel to and where they can rest, and for many generations, until recently, a place that most city residents called "home." Whatever the relationship may have been between perception and reality in the past, there is no doubt that the reality is being transformed. The pace of urbanization in the last 40 years has grown tremendously and people have not only been moving from the rural areas to cities, but from town to city, city to city, and from one country to another.