From urban-rural to global dependencies

Against the background of global urban knowledge economy, this paper discusses some of the challenges that sustainable urban life is facing in the global knowledge economy of the 21st century. The paper makes an overview of the fundamental change in urban-rural relations, urban and rural demographics, the concepts of place surplus and place attractiveness, agglomeration and the new economic geography, global threats to long-term urban sustainability and finally the needs of policy visions and strategies for sustainable urban life across the world.

Keywords: urban-rural relations, place attractiveness, urban sustainability, agricultural productivity, global market failure