Sustainability and cooperation in post-nationalistic urban network

Architects are broadening their horizons and looking at the neighborhood and all the support systems not just the house or a skyscraper itself. Systems thinking seems to be en vogue again. If we thus broaden the horizon to include infrastructure spending, countries in emerging markets spend up to 10% of their GNP on infrastructure projects. New cities seam to rise in years, thus why not think of building a sustainable city. This raises a question: will the shiny new cities attract current young professionals. After all there is not much growth in the west. Right now we have the network effect of young talented educated people wanting to hang out together in places like NYC and London. But as the global urbanization trend continues and living standard differential for professionals narrow, will you want to live in old NYC or new Shanghai? Even the city where I grew up in Poland has started construction on a NY style 220m residential tower and plans to build another modern museum! That looks like quite pleasant place to live. Thus perhaps just like in aviation industry the rise of the low cost carriers have nudged the balance of flying from hub and spoke exclusive to a mix of point to point and hub and spoke. Perhaps in wake of this current financial crisis the raise of the Emerging Markets countries will have the same effect of dispersing New York and London centric finance hubs into a more spread point to point financing network. Now, what does that mean for your career? Moving to Medina?