ABSTRACT
The new urban reality, the one that the Millennial Generation of today will inherit, is global cities and an interlocking network of global urbanism. Sociologist Saskia Sassen coined the term global cities to describe the new urban reality. Global cities as centers of innovation, adds emphasis to the importance of the social developments. As the global cities and the world city network continues to emerge and become even more dominant, citizens of the twenty-first century will be confronted with a wide range of challenges and opportunities. Cities first arose in the river valleys of China as early as the second millennium BCE, and Chinese cities have been among the world's largest and most splendid for as far back as antiquity and the European Middle Ages. The ongoing urban planning and design of global cities presents many problems and opportunities, focusing on environmental concerns as well especially energy use, and density.
