This is exciting stuff. I was unaware that such shift is now. You could argue that this marks the end of the rural era - but then again; no, still billions of people will live with the shortcomings of combined ruralism and poverty. My question is, isn't this really a mark of how the world increasingly is divided into two groups, one group of priviliged folks from Gotham and one group of peasants?

i dont think so. the main problem in cities is boredom. only few are doing well. most of big metropolies are very poor.some rich people in the centres but rest are slums. the division is inside the city, not between the cities and the rest.

I think jp is right - apart from the fact that the rich people in most cities don't live in the centers but in less crowded areas. Right?

i agree with booth. i think there are different levels of division: inside the city,between the city and the rural area..it would be nice study how this differents levels could interact among themselves also because i don't think that only poor people lives in rural area or in the suburbian or rather i think that now "rich" people prefear to live in the "outside".

These aspects are pretty right but I think that the problem in the cities is more complex than we think. It doesn't have to do only with "the rich and the poor" areas it has to do with pollution, overcrowded and empty areas, criminality and other. The problem is that all these increase the level of loneliness people feel in the cities.

what fascinates me is the level of development, the continuous addition of highways and suburbs, if we continue this way then yes the world will turn into one big city...However if we contrast this with how cities used to grow, organically and in a utilitarian sense where people really built their own homes and thus were a part of a city and the land. I can see how we have become more efficient and how now one person (figuratively) is providing 200 houses at once...the loneliness we feel is really a lack of origin and place...generally we don't know how we ended up where we are aside from the financial indicators...we occupy the land we don't know the land... ...lets say 50% of people don't even know how to prepare food for themselves let alone grow it and therefor buy prepared food...hence obesity...these are all actions that are out of control and out of balance...if i made sense to anyone please give a shout out...if not i appologise as i tend to think in leaps and not in sequence sometimes...;-)

51% urban, 49% rural... hum... don't think so. maybe we're inhabitting cities, but most of us are little men or provincial ladies, hidden behind cloth of successful businessman. in fact, due to our greed and shallowness we've become slaves of capitalizam. and during this constant race for winning, we've forgotten how to be human. btw, maki, what you said made sense. please excuse my english