We are living in the epoch of urbanisation. Cities have been engines of economic growth for
several centuries but their centrality in global production and consumption has accelerated in
the last five decades at an unparalleled rate. A McKinsey report as far back as 2012 noted that
just 440 cities in developing countries would be responsible for over half the global GDP
growth in the subsequent decade1. As an aggregate, the GDP of cities in Asia is slated to exceed
the European and North American cities combined, by 2027, as per a 2018 report by the
research institute Oxford Economics2.
