A lot of US farmers fled into the slums and tenements of the big cities in the 1930s, just as many African farmers are today fleeing to the slums of Africa’s big cities – and Europe’s. But it is not just Africans; the world has been moving into cities. Now for the first time in history more people are urban than are rural. By 2050, 6–7 billion people will live in cities, about as many as live on the entire planet today.
Human civilization is changing. The hunter-gatherers who became farmers are now halfway down the road from being agriculturists to becoming urbanites. These migrants move in hope from field to favela.
