The megacity census: who really lives in the world’s biggest cities

None of this happened by accident. Behind each of these changes is a long chain of decisions, experiments and, occasionally, happy mistakes — and a small group of people stubborn enough to keep going when the early results were disappointing. What happens next will depend on choices being made now, often in rooms most of us will never see. The next twelve months, almost everyone agreed, will be decisive.

Critics argue the shift is being oversold. They point to earlier booms that faded as quickly as they arrived, and to the uneven way the benefits have been shared. “Some neighbourhoods are being transformed,” said one community organiser. “Others are watching from the other side of the river.”

How we got here

Experts say the most important thing is to watch the small signals: the opening hours that quietly extend, the new routes that appear on the map, the conversations that move from the margins to the mainstream.

Everyone said it would never work here. Now everyone wants to know how we did it.

Maya Rahman, reporting

Officials are cautious about calling it a trend. “We have seen spikes before,” one analyst told us, “but what is different this time is how broad it is. It is not one city or one age group. It is everywhere at once.” The data tells part of the story. Over the past eighteen months the figures have roughly doubled, and early numbers for this year suggest the curve has not flattened. The rest of the story is harder to measure: a change in mood, in what people say they want, and in what they are willing to pay for.

The view from the street

For those on the ground, the debate can feel abstract. What matters is whether the rent is paid, whether the shop is busy on a Tuesday, whether the kids have somewhere to go after school. On those measures, the picture is more mixed than either side admits.

It started, as these things often do, with a handful of people who noticed something the rest of us had walked past. A few years later the numbers are impossible to ignore, and the people who were early are now being asked to explain what comes next.