As the 21st century unfolds, the inevitability that a growing share of people will live in cities is juxtaposed with deep uncertainty about what the urban future holds particularly in the rapidly urbanizing countries of the global South. Will increasing levels of urbanization coincide with an expansion of economic opportunity and productive employment? Will cities of the future as many have in the past create pathways for social and economic mobility? Or will a pathological form of urbanization develop, where city growth is not accompanied by the creation of productive jobs with appropriate remuneration, basic social protections, and opportunities for upward mobility?