With our nation states on the ropes, it's time for cities to take the lead

Large and medium-sized cities are well suited to solve many of our planet’s most daunting challenges like climate change, pandemics, inequality, conflicts, terrorism and even the terrifying prospect of nuclear war.

For one, more than 54% of the world’s population now live in a city, compared with less than 1% when nation-states showed up on the scene. This is one reason why cities are the new power centre of the global economy: they are platforms for human-led innovation, entrepreneurship and growth.

And where nation-states are instinctively independent, competitive and defined by rigid borders and parochial ideas of sovereignty, cities are dramatically more interdependent, cooperative and open. A snapshot of a WEF report on the subject: