“Why Squatter Cities are a Good Thing”

“Why Squatter Cities are a Good Thing”:

Steward Brand has some startling claims about urbanisation. That link is a 3-minute video on which I'd be keen to hear some thoughts. A couple of the most pertinent bullet points:

• ‘The birthrate of new urban dwellers drops immediately to replacement level (2.1 children/woman), and keeps on dropping.'

• [At current urbanisation levels and rates] ‘world population will level off at 8 or 9 billion, and then drop rapidly.'

He also claim that ‘cities are wealth creators' and that, even in the vast squatter cities, ‘billions are climbing out of poverty.'