Albert Bakhtizin is director of the Central Institute of Economics and Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a member of the academy and a professor at Lomonosov Moscow State University.Over the past few decades, people in many countries have witnessed extraordinary technological progress. Transport is becoming smarter, robots and drones are entering everyday life, infrastructure is growing more complex, buildings are reaching ever higher into the sky and expanding cities are drawing in millions of new residents.The number of megacities – urban areas with populations of at least 10 million – rose from eight in 1975 to 33 in...