"Sometime in the next year, a woman will give birth in the
Lagos slum of Ajegunle, a young man will flee his village
in west j-ava for the bright lights of Jakarta, or a farmer will
move his impoverished family into one of Lima's innumerable
pueblos jovenes. The exact event is unimportant and it will pass entirely
unnoticed. Nonetheless it will constitute a watershed in human history.
For the first time the urban population of the earth will outnumber
the rural. Indeed, given the imprecisions of Third World censuses, this
epochal transition may already have occurred."
Where are the heroes, the colonisers, the victims of the Metropolis?
Brecht, Diary entry, 1921
I've read this article at least 4 times in university and own the book. This intro never gets old.