Parag Khanna, a Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation, wrote in 2011: “The 21st century will not be dominated by America or China, Brazil or India, but by the ‘City.’ In a world that increasingly appears ungovernable, cities – not states – are islands of governance on which the future world order will be built… In this century, it will be the city – not the state – that becomes the nexus of economic and political power.”
This echoes what journalist and urban activist Jane Jacobs wrote almost three decades before. In her Cities and the Wealth of Nations (1985), Jacobs outlined how “import-substitution” in cities and towns – or the process through which a certain locality gains the ability to create products and services that it previously imported – is in fact at the root of all economic expansion. In short, cities (municipalities, villages or other subnational divisions) are the true engines of national prosperity.
