Synopsis "The Millennial Metropolis: Power Cities in the Age of Trump"
The most important characteristics of this age are the massive growth, urbanization and mobility of the world population, the decline of the middle class and the dramatic rise to power of the techno-managerial elite and the super-rich power elite. A critical urban mass began to be reached from the 1980s until today when not only current migration but population growth from earlier migration increased to the point where the linkage between major cities and the hinterland began to weaken. As the size of major cities increased so did the scale of their technology, management and financial structures. The disciplines related to these structures began to gravitate to and concentrate in major cities to the exclusion of other areas. This concentration altered the national economic structure by introducing total specialization in all key aspects of the economy so that secondary cities and rural areas no longer retained the economic, management and financial resources to retain their traditional role in the national hierarchy. When combined with rapid and unstoppable globalist restructuring, and massive redistribution to the power elite and techno-managerial elite of global and national wealth, a new environment emerged where an increasingly small number of major cities began to assert their newly created interests and power over all others through the techno-managerial elite. These are the power cities of the technology control era, coincidentally the Age of Trump. This book seeks to understand this new environment in detail and consider its impact on nearly all aspects of human life and interaction. In addition, it presents likely challenges and potential outcomes that may result from trends and developments already too far progressed to be re-oriented. This book principally addresses urbanization, political economy and technology, although it necessarily addresses other subjects, most particularly economic justice, and seeks primarily to explore the relationship of political economy with global urbanization, and the related options for social and physical organization. The power cities that have emerged are the homes of the power elite and their agents, the techno-managerial elite. These power cities dominate secondary cities and towns, the hinterlands, and now even seek to dominate cities in other countries. The power gap between and within the power cities and the rest is unsustainable and is creating social conflict which will have to be resolved. There are four possible future scenarios for management of global urbanization, particularly in the case of the United States. None of them are fully satisfactory to current political economy ideologies. All of them indicate reduced freedom for most people, but one of them is more attractive in its potential to reduce social conflict. It is the Millennial Metropolis Model (MMM). The MMM replaces the currently discussed alternative of universal basic income with a more fundamental universal basic services approach that requires a more comprehensive and activist urban and regional planning program. New technologies such as self-driving vehicles, and more efficient designs to expand shared and unified spaces will provide improved opportunities for place-making and community-building. Under the MMM scenario common services would be provided as municipal monopolies for all of a single class of citizens only in approved and viable urban settlements where they are efficient and affordable, while guaranteed municipal services to other urban areas are phased out. Increasing financial and lifestyle security would allow the reduction of private ownership of most items to provide greater efficiency in space utilization. Implementation of the MMM would be the start of a comprehensive effort to reduce the disparities between power cities and their techno-managerial elite and the rest in order to restore social harmony, public commons and pro-people development.
