About 40,000 years ago the human brain changed and for the first time we could use representational art to mirror objects in the physical world. Representational art is the foundational concept of innovation Not surprising was that at this time the first cave drawings appeared. What also happened, which is surprising, is that the exchange of goods, the predecessor to business as we know it, appeared. Innovation gave man the ability to manage abundancy and scacity, which lead to the division of labor and the ability to enter into exchanges of goods.
With the advent of innovation and business, man was no longer trapped in the hunter-gatherer life style and cities first emerged. Cities basically were organized because they provided certain efficiencies which fostered the division of labor and exchange. With each major introduction of new technology thereafter (agriculture, steam engines, electricity, etc.), the number of people in cities as a percentage of the total population increased. Today many authorities expect 70 percent of the world's population to live in cities by 2050, or approximately 7 billion people.
Of course most cities were planned and organized when people road horses or used trolley cars for public transportation. Little attention was paid to air pollution, mortality rates or supply logistics. Basically no large city in the world was designed for the expected scale of urbanization by 2050. Government, almost always focused on maintaining the staus quo, has given little attention to the issues related to urbanization.
Fortunately, the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) and some other leading think tanks and universities are studying the problem. SFI focuses on complexity research "where physicists, biologists, mathematicians and the like congregate in attempts to decipher how the world works". (More on complexity.) This article from Big Think,"The Science of Cities: Is Urbanization Sustainable?", describes how SFI is approaching cities as large biological organisms as a way to better understand them. The Great Reset, by Richard Florida, does an excellent job of explaining the inevitability of increased urbanization as a result of the advent of computerization.
While everyone is focused on social media and big data to find the next Google, the bigger opportunities may lie in addressing the issues of urbanization. The first response may be "who wants to deal with the government". Recent events have surely reinforced such feelings, but I think that we will increasingly see the private sector take over traditional government services. Government lacks the resources to address social problems. According to HBS professor Michael Porter in a recent Ted talk (6.43 minutes in), government and foundations combined have annual revenues of of $4.3 trillion in the U.S. and the private sector has revenues of $20.1 trillion. The private sector will use these funds increasingly to fund privatization because they will no longer be able to tolerate government shortcomings in transportation, food, energy and health infrastructure.
So, the good news is I think future urbanization entrepreneurs ("urbaneurs") will have to deal less and less with government. The bad news is the problems are very near and inadequate resources are being directed to corrective action.