Synopsis Most of the world's population now lives in cities.

It is no longer possible to divide the world into a developed world, with big cities, and an `underdeveloped' or `Third World, without cities. A neat line can no longer be drawn on the globe that divides a world of urbanites from a world of peasants. Some of the biggest cities in the world are in countries that might previously have been described as `underdeveloped'. Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Shanghai, Mumbai (Bombay), Buenos Aires and Beijing are all among the ten cities with the biggest populations in the world, while Rio de Janeiro and Calcutta are not far behind.

The dramatic global growth to cities makes it very important for us to understand them and the ways in which they work. It represents a dramatic shift in the spatial organization of society--in the geographies of everyday life.