The fallacy of the ‘urban age’

In the first version of my PhD proposal I dutiful began by echoing the commonplace that over half of people now live in cities. It was an easy way to give my project the requisite sense of urgency. I took the claim directly from the The Endless City (2007), a book arising from the London School of Economics’ Urban Age Conferences. Plastered on the cover, in gigantic type, is the sequence:

10% lived in cities in 1900

50% is living in cities in 2007

75% will be living in cities in 2050

The argument is that there is a fundamental shift towards cities taking place, and that we’re now in an “urban age”. The statistics derive from the United Nations, with two UN reports in 2007 claiming that this “invisible but momentous milestone” had been reached. Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid argue that this ‘urban age’ thesis, despite becoming “doxic common sense” is dubious and unhelpful.

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