A Planet of Cities

Currently reading an excellent book, A Planet of Cities, where the author makes the point that urban life in dense cities presents the reality of a low-carbon footprint per capita across the planet. Although the swelling urban populations of the developing world (Mumbai, Lahore) crowd more people into smaller footprints than the current, first world urban centers (NYC, London), both ends of this spectrum of density are necessary to house the next 2 billion mortal souls while slowing the increase in greenhouse gases produced by the increased population. Without the growth of 21st century cities, we would not all fit.

Pagerank is more important than a Lexus

There is a second effect that city dwelling consumers in the developed world purchase fewer goods while at the same time city dwelling consumers in the developing world purchase, for the first time, the consumer goods that they, for the first time in history, produce. The net effect is slowing consumer demand for houses and cars in the first world and accelerating demand for houses and cars in the third world.

What I believe but cannot prove is that the financial markets react to this reality in an understandable fashion; the utility of digital connectivity replaces consumer goods with cognitive surplus.

These two poles are closing in on each other: "Average population densities in the Chinese cities studied were 7 times those of the US cities: 162 persons/hectare compared to 23 persons/hectare. Average annual CO2 emissions from transport in the US cities studied were 56 times those in Chinese cities: 12.8 tons per household compared to 0.27 tons per household". Again my intuition is that these figures presage a return to the mean -- by the end of this century most urban populations will approach parity or the planet will suffer.

This is a subset of the Gaia Hypothesis; financial markets (a product of DNA) will accommodate 'less buying and more thinking' or any other activity associated with urban living: a geometric increase in innovation arrising from cognitive surplus.