&gt;Generally people are driven to the urban centers in the first place after their [sustainable] rural ways of life and systems of land management are dismantled in the name of &quot;liberalization&quot;&#x2F;&quot;privatization&quot;&#x2F;&quot;modernization&quot;, leading to ecological deterioration, and ultimately resulting in complete desertification.<p>Maybe I&#x27;m misreading what you said - because I don&#x27;t think you could argue that people are moving from villages to cities because of privatization and land being polluted - <i>in general</i>. In some specific cases people are forced to move because of externalities like pollution or instability for sure - but migration to cities is just a step in social evolution that&#x27;s been happening since forever - subsistence farming is a horrible way to live compared to even low level jobs in cities and people naturally want to avoid that.