Urbanization, or a Return to Rural

MIT Sloan Management Review offered its "Nine Megatrends to Watch" for the next decade.

One of these proposed Megatrends is "Urbanization". Sloan says:

Urbanization: Two-thirds of us will live in cities. The urbanization of our populations will increase, creating more megacities as well as small- and medium-size metropolises. Countervailing forces will include a rising cost of living in the most desirable cities. The effects will include the need for more big buildings with better management technologies (big data and AI that makes buildings much more efficient), and we will need more food moved in from where we grow it to where we eat it — or rapidly expand urban agriculture.

"Urban agriculture". Whenever I see this phrase I throw up in my mouth a little bit. We are able to support the food needs of 8 million people in New York City because of scale agriculture in rural areas as well as foot imported from the southern hemisphere. The idea of hydroponic organic rooftop farms, encased in greenhouses to deal with New York's climate, and providing a steady supply of year round fresh vegetables to the local city street corner bodega is just fantasy. This, along with the fact that some cities are collapsing under load as we speak, in 2019, with an inability to house people, no ability to support the working class a city requires (plumbers, electricians, firefighters, cops, etc.), and serious hygiene issues is why I think every urban center has a maximum load. And many are near it, and some have exceeded it.

The corollary is I read over at the Financial Samurai blog. He is looking at various commercial real estate investments in secondary cities. Including crowdsourced REITs focused on this market. So someone is putting money on the idea the major metropolises are reaching their limit in terms of crowding and cost, and businesses will expand into secondary cities.

Living in the Atlanta, and reading about businesses moving from Atlanta to Nashville and Charlotte to escape the crowding and traffic of Atlanta suggests there is a trend to build the next great secondary city, the kind of place Dallas, Denver, Atlanta, and Orlando were in the late 1970s and 1980s. And I also believe there will be a rise of tertiary cities. Hip small cities not too far from major metropolises.

My Megatrend to watch for is the rise of these new secondary and tertiary places.