The Global City

Since the dawn of recorded time, when mankind first gathered in the Fertile Crescent ten millennia before Christ, cities have served as the core, indeed the cradle of civilization. In cities, men and women have always gathered together for protection, productivity and, ultimately, creativity. From the city we may trace the very development of humanity. Today, it is the attractions of our urban conglomerations that prove to be all but irresistible magnets—vast populations are migrating on a scale never before seen in human history.

So it seems appropriate for World Policy Journal to reflect on where today's city is, and where it may be going. Its future makes an appropriate departure for this issue's Big Question, examined by a selection of experts in urban development. Also UpFront, Paul Sullivan looks at energy and the city. In our Anatomy..., we explore Abu Dhabi's detailed plans for friendly neighborhood development. MapRoom shows us the invisible cities of the world— communities that exist outside of the traditional urban sphere yet very much within it.

Bruce Mau gives us a tour d'horizon, calling for a reimagining of the city itself. We then plunge directly into China, where there is more urban construction than in any other region of our planet. At least 200 cities of a million or more are already in place or in development. We devote three stories to this phenomenon—from the hutongs of Shanghai and Beijing to the vast windswept steppes of Inner Mongolia. Where Genghis Khan once ruled and when urban clusters were little more than the portable yurts of the nomads, today, there are new cities with six-lane roads sweeping in from the plains, as Elizabeth Pond describes. Angela Bao brings a poignant portrait of the human cost of urbanization, while Didi Pei, the brilliant architect and heir to perhaps the greatest living proponent of the new urban environment, holds forth in this issue's Conversation.

Inevitably, with many cities a millennium old, there is the conflict between what to preserve and what to evolve, as Angela Ruggeri examines from her perch in Rome. Benjamin Siegel, reporting from New Delhi, details India coping with the urban challenges of hosting a global competition. In Nigeria, Pelu Awofeso observes that in even the most rural nations, it is the city that is the greatest magnet, sending half the population on the move and presenting new and unforeseen challenges.

On other subjects, the issue takes readers on a stunning photographic journey into the lives and loves of Iran's youth—straight and gay—with Azerbaijani-born photographer Rena Effendi. Damasu Reyes spent months in Austria on a grant from the Ford Foundation and details the repression of immigrants arriving in this nation that was once a sanctuary against communism. Polish journalist Piotr Zalewski describes Turkey's efforts to take on superpower status, while Amitai Etzioni, the distinguished scholar of all things nuclear, raises red flags about the newest challenge to controlling nuclear proliferation. And distinguished researcher Khadija Sharife uncovers the dark side of Liberia and flags of convenience. Finally, World Policy Journal editor David A. Andelman takes us into the spymasters' land of mirrors that passes for intelligence in his regular column, Coda.

With this issue, you may have noticed a few changes in our look. An exciting new approach to our design—clean, elegant, more accessible— showcases all that's best about World Policy Journal. At the same time, the World Policy Institute is delighted to announce that the Journal will begin a new publishing partnership January 1, 2011, with SAGE Publications, which will handle online and print production, subscriptions, advertising and other aspects of the business side of our magazine.

SAGE is a leading international publisher of journals, books and electronic media for academic, educational and professional markets since 1965. SAGE has principal offices in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC.

World Policy Journal chose SAGE in part because of its reputation for editorial excellence, flexibility and independence. In an era of increasing media consolidation, we like that SAGE is neither a university publishing house nor part of a corporate monolith, and offers the...