TIME Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.

Current subscribers for full access. Not a TIME subscriber? .

Megacities

By the millions they come, the ambitious and the down-trodden of the world drawn by the strange magnetism of urban life. For centuries the progress of civilization has been defined by the inexorable growth of cities. Now the world is about to pass a milestone: more people will live in urban areas than in the countryside. Does the growth of megacities portend an apocalypse of global epidemics and pollution? Or will the remarkable stirrings of self- reliance that can be found in some of them point the way to their salvation?

KINSHASA, ZAIRE -- HOME TO 4 million people -- is...

Quotes of the Day »

RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
For use in rail of Articles page or Section Fronts pages. Duplicate and change name as necesssary to distinguish.