32 peace and prosperity. An extraordinary demo- graphic reversal in history took place: In the 1800s, one person in thirty lived in a city; now it is one person in two. Cities that urbanize too fast are the ones where violence is the most intense. Karachi is given as an example—in 1947, it was a city of 500,000 people; it is now a megacity of 21 million and also one of the most violent cities in the world. The question is how to make the megacities that are more fragile more successful in combating gangs, poverty, and inequality. https://www.youtube.com/embed/rokPqH- c9iD0 How Megacities Are Changing the Map of the World (2016) Global strategist Parag Khanna proposes that as our expanding cities grow ever more con- nected through transportation, energy, and communications networks, we evolve from geography to what he calls “connectography.” The world will change from being divided according to politics and geographical barriers into a world connected through a network of functions. Cities already collaborate on sustainable urbanization, even if their govern- ments are not doing it successfully. Increased connectivity brings bigger stability and holds a promise of reducing violence, pollution, and social inequalities. https://www.youtube.com/embed/U7y4Gl- mwPLQ FEATURE FILMS and TV SHOWS Blade Runner (1982) Granddaddy of all visions of the future, the original Ridley Scott’s classic about artificial intelligence running amok in the year 2019 has come to pass in many aspects. Harrison Ford stars as a policeman, a hunter of rogue androids created as slave labor who rebelled against their human masters. Scott created a vision of future Los Angeles—overpopulated with mostly Asian inhabitants, polluted, lashed with constant rain, lit by giant video bill- boards, and policed by flying car patrols. This futuristic Los Angeles eerily looks like some contemporary Asian coastal city (minus the flying cars though…). https://www.youtube.com/embed/esPJYcak- VO0 Chunking Express (1994) Hong Kong art-movie master Wong Kar-wai has set his movie in a housing and shopping complex called Chunking Mansions—17 floors of stores and apartments where people live next to each other but still are totally isolated. This is the reality and certainly the future of megacities from Latin America to Asia—mil- lions of people living side by side but not really feeling part of a close community. Apart from being one of the classic masterpieces of Asian cinema, this is a great insight into life in Hong Kong before the reunification and before HK became the jungle of modern glass towers that it is today. https://www.youtube.com/embed/Bjd7PFf_ TFw Nil by Mouth (1997) The London of glass towers and tourist at- tractions is not the only London there is. An underbelly of the city is explored in this depressing account of a big-city existence that includes poverty, violence, addiction, and less- than-pleasant living conditions. The acclaimed English actor Gary Oldman served here as director and drew on his own childhood experiences growing up in southeast London full of council flats, local stores, and grimy streets. Even though the movie is 20 years old, the working-class environment is not much different in any large city any time. https://www.youtube.com/embed/_ BsPLaS0ksg City of God (2002) An art-house classic movie about Rio de Ja- neiro’s slums and a great portrait of two cities within one: the one of people who are secure and employed, and the other one of people II. Megacities & the Growth of Global Real Estate Companies