On the one hand, the 21st Century is being identified as the Century of Cities . While massive emigration of rural populations into towns started with the Industrial Revolution, this is still an ongoin process even if very brief from a historical perspective. The couple of centuries since, account for only about 0.5% of human existence on Earth . Yet, as recently as the 1980’s, total urban population worldwide was less than 30%. Just now, the World’s population living in cities is overcoming the 50% mark and is expected to become 75% by 2025 (a percentage already reached by most indusrtialized countries). Hence, the definite urbanization of mankind is happening right now, after 40,000 years of the appearence of our species. This is indeed the Century of Cities: “The urbanization of human experience is, as a dominant phenomenon, a reality of the new millenium” .

On the other hand, the 21st Century has also been identified as the Century of Knowledge or the Century of Learning . After WW II, over 50% of GDP in an increasing number of industrialized countries moved consistently from material-based to knowledge-based. In the global arena, The United Nations , the European Union , the OECD , and the World Bank have all stressed the critical importance of the Knowledge Economy as a global reality established over the turn of the century. Taichi Sakaiya and Peter Drucker , amongst others, foresaw the end-of-century advent of the Knowledge Economy as the grounds for the foundation of the Knowledge Society. According to Sakaiya, we are inaugurating a new era: “It is my contention that we are entering a new phase of civilization in which the value attached to knowledge is the driving force” . We have entered The Century of Knowledge.

This book is about the convergence of these two emerging conditions of human civilization – cities and knowledge - at the dawn of the new millenium: The Century of Knowledge Cities. Global urbanization and the advent of the Knowledge Society, constitute each an unprecedented and complex reality. Each has exposed the limits of conventional disciplinary approaches to urban development and to social value creation, respectively. Both together, integrated in the Knowledge City, constitute one of the most complex phenomena ever faced by mankind and probably a critical one for its future evolution.

©   A l l  r i g h t s  r e s e r v e d  2 0 0 0,  2 0 0 2,  2 0 0 4,  2 0 0 6,  The W o r l d  C a p i t a l  I n s t i t u t e