Hm. Let’s see, in the event of a global economic crash, whether India or China fare better.

The village is rooted in self-sufficiency and food security. The global economy, while efficient in some respects, is incredibly volatile and unstable. To grow dependent on something you cannot hope to control is not wisdom.

I think that the new technologies of decentralization are going to make India’s bet on the village seem like a very good idea, as the export-driven cities of China peak and fade into rapid obsolescence as urbanization run its course.

The Chinese market cannot sustain that much urbanization. The export markets are driven by unsustainable borrowing. Push will meet shove, and what then?

Half of the human race lives in villages. Given cell phones, and eventually lap tops, given cheap pumps to irrigate, and cheap solar for drinking water, power and light, given primary health care from traveling workers… I think the slums look like a much less good, and much less *stable* option. Particularly with gasoline at $130 and rising: living close to your food supply makes more and more sense.

The golden age of the village is ahead of us, not behind us.

http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2008/05/the_precious_village_holds_ind.html

He’s not an infrastructure guy or a technologist, so he’s following the wrong trends. It’s hard to see the metahistorical forces which create the village when you think in centuries, not millennia.