Like most of China's booming conurbations, Macau is paying an environmental price; the air is thick with smog and dust, and the Pearl River has transferred some of its pollution to Macau's seas.
But migrating to the towns did not end poverty, as Berliners discovered during the first world war as they starved in slums that Mr Reader blames on the excesses of property speculators.The book loses its way somewhat when it addresses the problems of modern "conurbations".
Improve that, throw in some seeds and fertiliser, scrap tariffs, build warehouses and roads, and the region may beat the worst of climate change.Geographers at UN Habitat, a city-planning agency, say conurbations must adapt to the needs of climate-change migrants.
Half of the London-to-Birmingham route, much of which runs through congested conurbations or deeply scenic countryside, involves expensive tunnelling or cutting and covering.
If the worst could copy the habits of the best, climate change might be slowed significantly.To address this question a team of researchers led by Christopher Kennedy of the University of Toronto has compared the emissions of ten conurbations.
If Scotland, with some 5m residents, controls education, welfare and tax rates, why should regions and conurbations with similar populations be run from London?
The result is that Tyneside, one of Britain's smallest, poorest and most isolated conurbations, has some of the finest arts infrastructure in the country.This makes it a good lens through which to view the issue of arts funding, which is proving to be one of the thorniest in the government's spending review, due to be announced on June 26th.
Without a vigorous party organisation in most of Britain's large conurbations, the Tories have abdicated the job of challenging Labour in many places to the Liberal Democrats.
The cities at the top of the table are separated by tiny differences, with just 0.3 percentage points between first and fourth.As has been clear for several years now, the cities that do best in this ranking are mid-sized conurbations in countries with low population densities.
People move from smaller to larger cities in countries like Germany and Japan because the biggest conurbations have stronger economies, with a greater variety of better-paying jobs.
From 1950 to 1955 only ten of the world's largest conurbations lost people, according to the UN (see chart).
