More than half of the world's population now live in cities. For many people this means enhanced employment opportunities, free exchanges of ideas, culture, enterprise and wealth. But for millions more it means slums, poverty, crime and disease.
The trend towards urban living in the developed and developing world is set to continue so in this week's podcast we look at the reasons behind this migration and ask whether city life can be made better and more productive.
In the studio we have the Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, author of Triumph of the City; the Guardian's architecture critic and author Jonathan Glancey; and our environment editor John Vidal.
And as the government gets ready to announce the creation of 10 enterprise zones in Britain, Andrew Carter, director of policy at the thinktank Centre For Cities, explains why the policy must evolve from a similar one enacted by Margaret Thatcher's government in the 1980s.
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