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"Modern humans have been around for at least 160,000 to 200,000 years but there is no archaeological evidence of any technology beyond basic stone tools until around 90,000 years ago. In Europe and western Asia this advanced technology and behaviour explodes around 45,000 years ago when humans arrive there, but doesn't appear in eastern and southern Asia and Australia until much later, despite a human presence. In sub-Saharan Africa the situation is more complex. Many of the features of modern human behaviour – including the first abstract art – are found some 90,000 years ago but then seem to disappear around 65,000 years ago, before re-emerging some 40,000 years ago.

"Scientists have offered many suggestions as to why these cultural explosions occurred where and when they did, including new mutations leading to better brains, advances in language, and expansions into new environments that required new technologies to survive. The problem is that none of these explanations can fully account for the appearance of modern human behaviour at different times in different places, or its temporary disappearance in sub-Saharan Africa."

Birth rates steadily declined and are still declining. In the developed world, they average 1.6 children per woman. In the developing world, the rate is 3 per woman. In countries such as Japan , authorities even ask women to have more children. Given existing trends, population will peak sometime at or before the middle of the 21st century, and then will begin to draw down for decades, possibly leveling out at 2 billion late in the next century.

One of the reasons population rates continue to drop is because of cities. A contributing factor to birth control in the world is the urban environment. Population planning is an individual act, but the incentive to plan a family is heavily influenced by urban migration. People are leaving rural areas where children are an asset, and relocating in cities where too many children are a liability.

Urban migration represents a kind of collective wisdom, and how we configure our cities will be critical to our survival. Regardless of the myths about living close to the land, cities are where human beings have the lowest ecological footprint. It takes less energy, wood, material, and food to provide a good life for a person in a city than in the country. Rather than perceive the city as an ecological sink sucking up the resources of the countryside, which cities can do, cities can also be a kind of ecological ark, places where humanity gathers while we peak in population and develop ecological intelligence for a new civilization. There is wisdom in this that is rather extraordinary. It was not predicted that cities might be the best strategy for our long-term survival and well-being. Yet that is exactly what is happening.

The viability of the urban environments, however, is not a given.

And when it comes to development, the fear grows even more intense. A relatively straightforward proposal to build a simple seven-storey condo in the north end of the city turns into a three-year marathon, complete with armies of lawyers arguing before the Ontario Municipal Board.

And who could forget the screams of protest occasioned by the Minto towers at Yonge and Eglinton and One Bedford Place at Bloor at Bedford? Both textbook examples of smart urban growth, but both able to turn locals into snarling beasts.

NIMBYism is one thing, but we have hit new levels of fear and loathing. Prevailing attitudes toward change dictate that it be avoided at all costs. As awful as the present may be, it's preferable to what might follow.

Fear of change is nothing new, of course, but how did we become so fearful?

In part it may be because so much of the growth that occurred after World War II, however well-intentioned, was misguided and destructive.

During the 1950s, '60s and '70s, bad things did happen to cities. The dominant narrative was one of urban decay and the way out was through the kind of mega-projects that now make us shake our heads in disbelief.

Just look at Regent Park, the housing project that won awards at the time but is now being razed and rebuilt. Experts travelled to Toronto from around the world to gaze at the marvel that was Regent Park. Now we can't wait to tear it down.

Back then, however, it made sense to sacrifice whole districts, even cities, in the name of progress. It was an ideology, almost a religion, that took everything into account but the people it was meant to benefit. Neighbourhoods were torn apart, residents displaced and history destroyed.

The Spadina Expressway established a new normal, a new attitude, a new Toronto. Although it was right to say no to the Spadina Expressway, it's not right to say no to everything.

"Toronto doesn't know how to say yes."

And Toronto isn't alone. "Fear of change is palpable everywhere in New York," reports Hilary Ballon, who co-edited the recently published, Robert Moses and the Modern City, a revisionist history of the controversial builder.

Residents complain when a new building is constructed, then when it's torn down.

Not surprisingly, the next big change in the development of the city also turned on a leap in technology: the invention of engines and manufacturing machinery. The Industrial Revolution did nothing at first to make urban life easier, but it did provide jobs—lots of them. With the new factories of the industrial age that began in the late 18th century was born an entirely new urban era. Peasants left the land in their multitudes to live in new cities, first in the north of England, then all over Europe and North America. By 1900, 13% of the world's population had become urban.

The latest leap, from 13% to 50% in just 107 years, also owes something to science and technology: improvements in medicine, coupled with new knowledge about ways to avoid disease, have enabled more and more people to live together without succumbing as once they did to diarrhoea, tuberculosis, cholera and other pestilences. The same developments, however, have similarly lengthened lives in the countryside, leading to a huge increase in rural population. Human ingenuity has not matched this increase with commensurate growth in rural prosperity. As a result, ever more villagers have been upping sticks to seek a better life in the city.

In the rich world, though, the city is undergoing very different changes. Many of the new towns that flourished in the Industrial Revolution and the manufacturing era that followed have been losing population. Even New York, for so long the epitome of urban sophistication, went through a bad patch in the 1970s. Some cities retain their role as administrative centres, by virtue of their political status. Some are still trading hubs, by virtue of their geographical position. Some endure simply because they have reached an equilibrium. But others struggle.

Of the traditional reasons for urban living, several (the presence of the shrine, the proximity of food) have lost their importance. Some of what the city provided (shops, factories) can now be offered in suburban malls or industrial parks—or in low-cost urban rivals in the developing world. Security, once one of the main reasons for huddling together, is often now more elusive in the druggy streets of the metropolis than in the exurbs. And technology, which has usually favoured urban progress, now enables people to work in rural bliss on home computers. No wonder so many cities find that in order to flourish they have to reinvent themselves.