Are cities the new countries?

[tonyz]

Interesting piece on mega-cities - we know they often drive public policy choices at the state and national level. Are mega-cities now more relevant to governance than nations? Think about the influence of NYC or LA in our national discourse as compared to Midwest or Texas.

Complete article a link below and I've also provided link to OECD study mentioned in BBC article.

Are cities the new countries?
BBC
Sean Coughlan
Education correspondent


Big cities have more in common with each other than with the rest of their own countries?

Are there meaningful comparisons between cities such as New York, London and Shanghai, rather than between nation states?

That is the suggestion of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Such mega-conurbations have bigger populations and economies than many individual countries - and the think tank argues that they face many similar challenges, whether it is in transport, housing, security, jobs, migration or education.

In a report on global trends shaping education, the OECD says cities could learn from each other's experiences, in a way that would be impossible at the level of national politics.

<snip>

http://www.bbc.com/news/education-35305586

See Chapter 3 page 61 in study as relates to cities...

http://www.oecd.org/education/trends-shaping-education-22187049.htm

[Flagg]

I reckon mega cities are the new countries with outsized shadow soveriegnty influence over the countries hosting them.

But I also don't think size alone determines it.

Centres of gravity like New York, London, Sydney, Dubai, etc are far closer to Singapore in terms of having achieved sustainable regional dominance as well as remaining within an acceptable infrastructure development "performance envelope"(at or ahead of the curve) via development and sustainment of tax base(and national largesse) to pay for it all.

Centres like Dhaka, Mumbai, Lagos, and Kabul seem to be perpetually behind the infrastructure development curve(as per Kilcullen's mention of 1 toilet jillion Mumbai residents "Out of the Mountains") with insufficient tax base and insufficient corruption mitigation perpetually disrupted by accelerating megaghetto populations.

From 30,000 feet they may seem the same and both mega cities and mega ghettos outsized leverage on the national stage, but should they be treated the same?

Is the OODA loop relevant?

Wouldn't is be safe to say that mega cities like NY & Shanghai are consistently able to cycle through their "municipal OODA loops" effectively while mega ghettos are constantly having their "municipal OODA loops" disrupted?

Do 2016 NY and Shanghai have any/many transferable lessons learned for 2016 Lagos and Mumbai?

I wonder if there'd be more value in "municipal historians" mapping the historical holistic governance, demographics, civil engineering, essential services, crime, and tax base development of NY and Shanghai from 1916(rather than 2016) and leveraging current low cost IT tools where possible to provide more effective solutions.

What's the roadmap for a mega ghetto to break the cycle of a perpetually disrupted munipical OODA loop and develop into an effective mega city?

I wonder when the 18C and 18F pipeline or area studies will include the history of municipal planning and history of transitions from crime boss to political machine legitimacy for future operations?

[tonyz]

Dropped a couple of additional readings discussing mega-cities given the relative urbanization of the world.

The second article suggests that military concentration on mega-cities may be ill advised.

Excerpts below - complete articles at links.

Megacities and the United States Army: Preparing for a Complex and Uncertain Future
Chief of Staff of the Army, Strategic Studies Group

"Crowded megacities, beset by poor living conditions, periodic rises in the price of commodities, water shortages, and unresponsive municipal services, will be fertile petri dishes for the spread of both democracy and radicalism, even as regimes will be increasingly empowered by missiles and modern, outwardly focused militaries.”
- Robert Kaplan, The Revenge of Geography: What the Map tells Us about Coming Conflicts and the Battle against Fate"

http://www.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/351235.pdf

MegAcities: Pros And cons
The Case against Megacities
Michael Evans
© 2015 Michael Evans
Strategic Studies Institute

"In 2007, half the world passed the benchmark of fty percent of its population being located in urban areas while urban demography now grows at some 65 million every year – a breakneck rate of speed equivalent to the creation of seven new Chicagos annually.4 Not surprisingly, the urban revolution has spawned a debate on the meaning of this transition for the world’s future economic structure and geopolitical stability.5 For some analysts, mass urbanization is a prescription for growing anarchy, violent political breakdown, and ecological decline in the developing world. Pessimists foresee a coming era of “feral cities” in which con ict will be “crowded, connected and coastal” and occur in failed megalopolises from Karachi and Dhaka in Asia, to Kinshasa and Lagos in Africa.6"

"There are many diverse kinds of urban contingencies to consider in a wide-range of urban localities: from all-out combat operations through humanitarian relief and the creation of protected enclaves and evacuation corridors to littoral operations. Given such diversity, military professionals need to be careful they do not pursue any single avenue of research that might prove to be a policy cul-de-sac. A close study of the phenomenon of urbanization as a future conflict environment is justifed, but a convincing case for the megacity as a primary strategic environment for US forces has yet to be made."

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Issues/Spring_2015/6_EvansMichael_The%20Case%20against%20Megacities.p df

[miclo18d]

City-State, where have I heard that before?

I choose Sparta!

And anyone espousing liberal mantras are deemed helots!

"SPARTANS! WHAT IS YOUR PROFESSION?"

:D

[Flagg]

SFOD-Z?

Z for countless urban Zombies, or maybe Soylent Green Berets?

Kilcullen's "Out of the Mountains" that I mentioned is a good read too:

http://www.amazon.com/Out-Mountains-Coming-Urban-Guerrilla-ebook/dp/B00DY3FFMS

[ddoering]

Cut off their food supply and they all quickly become ghettos.

[tonyz]

Kilcullen's "Out of the Mountains" that I mentioned is a good read too:

http://www.amazon.com/Out-Mountains-Coming-Urban-Guerrilla-ebook/dp/B00DY3FFMS

Thanks for that - had read some of his previous work but not "Out of the Mountains."

Cheers !

[FlagDayNCO]

This is already happening, but in a not so veiled manner. Just my home state of Pennsylvania, the majority of what politicians work on has some connection to Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, or some other city. Those of us that live in the rural areas, even suburbs, see the majority of the fruits of our labor go to social causes in the big cities. Where they can, they import the big city into the suburbs.

The parallel to the US HUD remapping and requiring smaller communities to bring in "less fortunate" is part of this culture change.