This new report issued jointly by the Atlantic Council and the Stimson Center argues that the environmental security field has yet to incorporate global urbanization, the twenty-first century’s central demographic trend, fully into its purview.

Humankind recently crossed an important threshold: over half of all people now live in cities. In contrast to most of human history, cities have become the default condition for human habitation almost everywhere on earth. Urbanization is proceeding rapidly and at unprecedented scales in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.