Francisco Javier Carrillo

Few aspects of today s world may characterize better the dawn of the new millenium than the transformation of regions and cities into knowledge societies. The evolutionary significance of both the definite urbanization of the world s population and, above all, the experience upgrade of urban life in post-industrial economies is only beginning to be realized: the 21st century society is post-industrial, the Knowledge City is its horizon. ^[1]

On the one hand, the 21st century is being identified as the Century of Cities. ^[2] While massive emigration of rural populations into towns started with the Industrial Revolution, this is still an ongoing process even if very brief from a historical perspective. The couple of centuries since account for only about 0.5% of human existence on earth. ^[3] Yet, as recently as the 1980s, total urban population worldwide was less than 30%. Just now, the world s population living in cities is overcoming the 50% mark and is expected to become 75% by 2025 (a percentage already reached by most developed countries). Hence, the definite urbanization of mankind is happening right now, after 40,000 years of the appearance of our species. This is indeed the Century of Cities: The urbanization of human experience is, as a dominant phenomenon, a reality of the new millenium. ^[4]

On the other hand, the 21st century has also been identified as the Century of Knowledge ^[5] or the Century of Learning. ^[6] After World War II,...