How megacities are changing the map of the world

I want you to reimagine
how life is organized on earth.

Think of the planet like
a human body that we inhabit.

The skeleton is the transportation system
of roads and railways,

bridges and tunnels,
air and seaports

that enable our mobility
across the continents.

The vascular system
that powers the body,

or oil and gas pipelines
and electricity grids.

that distribute energy.

And the nervous system
of communications

is the internet cables,
satellites, cellular networks

and data centers that allow
us to share information.

This ever-expanding infrastructural matrix

already consists of 64 million
kilometers of roads,

4 million kilometers of railways,

2 million kilometers of pipelines,

and one million kilometers
of internet cables.

What about international borders?

We have less than
500,000 kilometers of borders.

Let's build a better map
of the world.

And we can start by overcoming
some ancient mythology.

There's a saying with which
all students of history are familiar:

"Geography is destiny."

Sounds so grave, doesn't it?

It's such a fatalistic adage.

It tells us that landlocked countries
are condemned to be poor,

that small countries cannot escape
their larger neighbors,

that vast distances are insurmountable.

But every journey I take
around the world,

I see an even greater force
sweeping the planet:

connectivity.

The global connectivity revolution,
in all of its forms --

transportation, energy
and communications--

has enabled such a quantum leap
in the mobility of people,

of goods, of resources,
of knowledge,

such that we can no longer think
of geography as distinct from it.

In fact, I view the two forces
as fusing together

into what I call connectography.

Connectography represents
a quantum leap

in the mobility of people, resources
and ideas,

but it is an evolution,

an evolution of the world from
political geography,

which is how we legally divide
the world,

to functional geography,

which is how we actually
use the world,

from nations and borders,
to infrastructure and supply chains.

Our global system is evolving

from the vertically integrated
empires of the 19th century,

through the horizontally,
interdependent nations

of the 20th century,

into a global network civilization
in the 21st century.

Connectivity, not sovereignty,
has become

the organizing principle
of the human species.

(Applause)

We are becoming this
global network civilization

because we are literally building it.

All of the world's defense budgets
and military spending

taken together total just under
2 trillion dollars per year.

Meanwhile, our global infrastructure
spending is projected to rise

to 9 trillion dollars per year
within the coming decade.

And, well, it should.

We have been living off
an infrastructure stock

meant for a world population
of 3 billion,

as our population has crossed
7 billion to 8 billion

and eventually 9 billion and more.

As a rule of thumb, we should spend
about 1 trillion dollars

on the basic infrastructure needs
of every billion people in the world.

Not surprisingly, Asia is in the lead.

In 2015, China announced the creation

of the Asia Infrastructure
and Investment Bank,

which together with a network
of other organizations,

aims to construct a network
of iron and silk roads,

stretching from Shanghai to Lisbon.

And as all of this topographical
engineering unfolds,

we will likely spend more
on infrastrucutre

in the next 40 years,

we will build more infrastructure
in the next 40 years,

than we have in the last 4,000 years.

Now let's stop and think about it
for a minute.

Spending so much more

on building the foundations
of global society

rather than on the tools
to destroy it

can have profound consequences.

Connectivity is how we optimize
the distribution

of people and resources
around the world.

It is how mankind comes to be more
than just the sum of its parts.

I believe that is what is happening.

Connectivity has a twin megatrend
in the the 21st century:

planetary urbanization.

Cities are the infrastructures
that most define us.

By 2030, more than two thirds
of the world's population

will live in cities.

And these are not mere
little dots on the map,

but they are vast archepelagos
stretching hundreds of kilomters.

Here we are in Vancouver,

at the head of the Cascadia Corridor

that stretches south across
the US border to Seattle.

The technology powerhouse
of SIlicon Valley

begins north of San Francisco
down to San Jose

and across the bay to Oakland.

The sprawl of Los Angeles
now passes San Diego

across the Mexican border
to Tijuana.

San Diego and Tijuana
now share an airport terminal

where you can exit into either country.

Eventually, a high-speed rail network
may connect the entire Pacific spine.

America's northeastern megalopolis
begins in Boston through New York

and Philadelphia to Washington.

It contains more than 50 million people

and also has plans for a high-speed
rail network.

But Asia is where we really see
the megacities coming together.

This continous strip of light
from Tokyo through Negoya

to Osaka contains
more than 80 million people,

and most of Japan's economy.

It is the world's largest megacity.

For now.

But in China, megacity clusters
are coming together

with populations reaching
100 million people.

The Bohai Rim around Beijing,

The Yangtze River Delta
around Shanghai

and the Pearl River Delta,

stretching from Hong Kong
to ?

And in the middle,

the ? megacity,

whose geographic footprint
is almost the same size

as the country of Austria.

And any number of these
megacity clusters

has a GDP approaching
2 trillion dollars,

that's almost the same
of all of India today.

So imagine if our global diplomatic
institutions, such as the G20

were to base their membership
of economic size

rather than national representation.

Some Chinese megacities may be in
and have a seat at the table,

while entire countries,
like Argentina and Indonesia would be out.

Moving to India, whose population
will soon exceed that of China,

it too has a number of megacity clusters,

such as the Delhi capital region
and Mumbai.

In the Middle East, greater Tehran
is absorbing

one third of Iran's population.

Most of Egypt's 80 million people

live in the corridor between
Cairo and Alexandria.

And in the gulf, a necklace
of city-states is forming,

from Bahrain and Qatar,

through the United Arab Emirates
to Muscat in Oman.

And then there's Lagos,

Africa's largest city
and Nigeria's commerical hub.

It has plans for a rail network
that will make it the anchor

of a vast Atlantic coastal corridor,

stretching across Benin,
Togo and Ghana,

to Abidjan, the capital
of the Ivory Coast.

But these countries
are suburbs of Lagos.

In the megacity world,

countries can be suburbs of cities.

By 2030, we will have as many
as 50 such megacity clusters

in the world.

So which map tells you more?

Our traditional map
of 200 discrete nations

that hang on most of our walls,

or this map of the 50 megacity clusters?

And yet, even this is incomplete

because you cannot understand
any individual megacity

without understanding its connections
to the others.

People move to cities to be connected,

and connectivity is
why these cities thrive.

Any number of them such as Sao Paulo
or Istanbul or Moscow

has a GDP approaching or exceeding
one third of one half

of their entire national GDP.

But equally importantly,

you cannot calculate any of their
individual value

without understanding the role
of the flows of people,

of finance, of technology

that enable them to thrive.

Take the Gauteng province
of South Africa,

which contains Johannesburg
and the capital Pretoria.

It too represents just over
a third of South Africa's GDP.

Equally importantly, it is home
to the offices

of almost every single
multinational corporation

that invests directly into South Africa

and indeed, into the entire
African continent.

Cities want to be part
of global value chains.

They want to be part
of this global division of labor.

That is how cities think.

I've never met a mayor
who said to me,

"I want my city to be cut off."

They know that their cities
belong as much

to the global network civilization
as to their home countries.

Now for many people, urbanization
causes great dismay.

They think cities are wrecking the planet.

But right now, there
are more than

200 intercity learning networks thriving.

That is as many as the
intergovernmental organizations

that we have.

And all of these intercity networks
are devoted to one purpose,

mankind's number one priority
in the 21st century:

sustainable urbanization.

Is it working?

Let's take climate change.

We know that summit after summit
in New York and Paris

is not going to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions.

But what we can see is that
transffering technology

and knowledge and policies
between cities

is how we've actually begun
to reduce

the carbon intensity of our economies.

Cities are learning from each other.

How to install zero-emissions buildings,

how to deploy electric
car-sharing systems.

In major Chinese cities, they're
imposing quotas

on the number of cars on the streets.

In many Western cities,

young people don't even
want to drive anymore.

Cities have been part of the problem,

now they are part of the solution.

Inequality is the other great challenge

to achieving sustainable urbanization.

When I travel through megacities
from end to end,

it takes hours and days,

I experience the tragedy
of extreme disparity

within the same geography.

And yet, our global stock
of financial assets

has never been larger,

approaching 300,000 trillion dollars.

That's almost four times
the actual GDP of the world.

We have taken on such
enormous debts

since the financial crisis,

but have we invested them
in inclusive growth?

No, not yet.

Only when we build sufficient,
affordable public housing,

when we invest in robust
transportation networks

to allow people to connect
to each other

both physically and digitally,

that's when our divided cities
and societies

will come to feel whole again.

(Applause)

And that is why infrastructure
has just been included

in the United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals,

because it enables all the others.

Our political and economic leaders

are learning that connectivity
is not charity,

it's opportunity.

And that's why our financial community
needs to understand

that connectivity is the most
important asset class of the 21st century.

Now, cities can make the world
more sustainable,

they can make the world
more equitable,

I also believe that connectivity
between cities

can make the world
more peaceful.

If we look at regions of the world
with dense relations across borders,

we see more trade, more investment,

and more stability.

We all know the story of
Europe after WWII,

where industrial integration
kicked off a process

that gave rise today's peaceful
European Union.

And you can see that Russia,
by the way,

is the least connected
of major powers

in the internaitonla system.

And that goes a long way
towards explaining

the tensions today.

Countries that have less stake
in the system

also have less to loose
in disturbing it.

In North America, the lines
that matter most on the map

are not the US-Canada border
or the US-Mexico border,

but the dense network of roads
and railways and pipelines

and electricity grids
and even water canals

that are forming an integrated
North American union.

North America does not need
more walls,

it needs more connections.

(Applause)

But the real promise of connectivity
is in the post-colonial world.

All of those regions where borders
have historically been

the most arbitrary

and where generations of leaders
have had hostile relations with each other,

but now a new group of leaders
has come into power

and is burying the hatchet.

Let's take Southeast Asia,

where high-speed rail networks
are planned

to connect Bangkok to Singapore

and trade corridors from Vietnam
to Myanmar.

Now this region of 600 million people

coordinates its agricultural resources
and its

and its industrial output.

It is evolving into what I call
a Pax Asiana,

a peace among Southeast Asian nations.

A similar phenomenon
is underway in East Africa,

where a half dozen countries
are investing

in railways and multimodal corridors

so that landlocked countries
can get their goods to market.

Now these countries coordinate
their utilities

and their investment policies.

They, too, are evolving
into a Pax Africana.

One region we know that could
especially use this kind of thinking

is the Middle East.

As Arab states tragically collapse,

what is left behind but
the ancient cities,

such as Cairo, Beirut
and Baghdad.

In fact, the nearly 400 million people
of the Arab world

are almost entirely urbanized.

As societies, as cities,

they are either water rich or water poor,

energy rich or energy poor.

And the only way to correct
these mismatches

is not through more wars
and more borders,

but through more connectivity
of pipelines and water canals.

Sadly, this is not yet the map
of the Middle East.

But it should be,

a connected Pax Arabia,

internally integrated and
productively connected

to its neighbors: Europe, Asia
and Africa.

Now it may not seem like
connectivity is what we want right now

towards the world's most turbulent region.

But we know from history
that more connectivity is the only way

to bring out stability in the long run,

because we know that in region after region,

connectivity is the new reality.

Cities and countries are learning
to aggregate

into more peaceful and prosperous wholes.

But the real test is going to be Asia.

Can connectivity overcome
the patterns of rivarly

among the far east.

After all, this is where
World War III

is supposed to break out.

Since the end of the Cold War,
a quarter-century ago,

at least 6 major wars have been
predicted for this region.

But none have broken out.

Take China and Taiwan.

In the 1990s, this was everyone's
leading WWIII scenario.

But since that time,

the trade and investment volumes
across the straits

have become so intense that last November,

leaders from both sides
held a historic summit

to discuss eventual peaceful
reunification.

And even the election of
a Nationalist party in Taiwan

that's pro-independence
earlier this year

does not undermine
this fundamental dynamic.

China and Japan have an even
longer history of rivalry

and have been deploying their
air forces and navies

to show their strength
in island disputes.

But in recent years, Japan
has been making

its largest foreign investments
in China.

Japanese cars are selling
in record numbers there.

And guess where the largest number
of foreigners

residing in Japan today
comes from?

You guessed it: China.

China and India have fought
a major war

and have three outstanding
border disputes,

but today India is the second largest
shareholder

in the Asia Infrastructure
Investment Bank.

Their building a trade corridor
stretching from Northeast India

through Myanmar and Bangladesh
to Southern China.

Their trade volume has grown
from 20 billion dollars a decade ago

to 80 billion dollars today.

Nuclear-armed Indian and Pakistan
have fought three wars

and continue to dispute Kashmir,

but they're also negotiating
a Most-Favored Nation trade agreement

and want to complete
a pipeline

stretching from Iran
through Pakistan to India.

And let's talk about Iran.

Wasn't it just two years ago
that war with Iran seemed inevitable?

Than why is every single major power
rushing to do business there today?

Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot
guarentee

that WWIII will not break out.

But we can definitely see
why it hasn't happened yet.

Even though Asia is home

to the world's fastest growing militaries,

these same countries are also
investing billions of dollars

in each other's infrastructure
and supply chains.

They are more interested
in each other's functional geography

than in their political geography.

And that is why their leaders
think twice,

step back from the brink,

and decide to focus on economic ties
over territorial tensions.

So often it seems like the world
is falling apart,

but building more connectivity

is how we put Humpty-Dumpty
back together again,

much better than before.

And by wrapping the world

in such seamless physical
and digital connectivity,

we evolve towards a world
in which people can rise above

their geographic contraints.

We are the cells and vessels
pulsing through

these global connectivity networks.

Everyday, hundreds of millions
of people go online

and work with people they've never met.

More than one billion people
cross borders every year,

and that's expected to rise
to three billion

in the coming decade.

We don't just build connectivity,

we embody it.

We are the global network civilization,

and this is our map.

A map of the world in which
geography is no longer destiny.

Instead, the future has a new
and more hopeful motto:

connectivity is destiny.

Thank you.

(Applause)