The Century of Urbanization

Enlarge image

Credit Wiki Will / Flickr Creative Commons

The Sydney skyline — what does increasing urbanization mean for the planet?

In hundreds of years, when people read the history of the 21st century, they may well call it the century of urbanization. The century in which hundreds of millions of people — billions, ultimately — left their homes in rural areas and crowded into cities, looking for new and better lives.

But how will that migration affect the planet?

Karen Seto, Associate Professor of the Urban Environment at Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, argues that the impact may be profound.