The Shift: The Future of Work is Already Here. Lynda Gratton

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ evidence that the trend will decrease. By 2010 in many Western countries more than 75% of people lived in an urban area.

      Urban and rural living have different communities and rhythms. In the mid-nineteenth century in Europe or America most people lived in the countryside, on a small farm or in a small town. The typical family grew some of its own food, raised livestock and took their surplus to the market to exchange for goods they did not produce. If, like me, you love the novels of Jane Austen or Henry James, then their vivid descriptions of life in the nineteenth century resonated with the scale and domesticity of life. Jane Austen’s Emma and Henry James’s Isabel do occasionally go into town – but remember that in the 1860s London was home to 3,189,000 people, New York to 813,000 and Boston to 177,000. Had our heroes been explorers, when they entered Bombay or Shanghai they would have found cities of around 600,000 and 700,000.

      This all changed in the West around 1870 when a host of innovations in transportation, energy creation and manufacturing created remarkable industrial growth, which sucked the population into the towns. The great chroniclers of this migration, Charles Dickens in the UK and Émile Zola in France, described both the excitement and the misery that this created. Between 1870 and 1900 New York’s population tripled from 942,000 to 3.4 million and London’s nearly doubled from 3,841,000 to 6,507,000. In the East, Bombay (now Mumbai) and Shanghai also grew – from 645,000 to 813,000 in Bombay and from around 600,000 to 1,000,000 in Shanghai. 2008 saw the balance tip from a majority of rural to a majority of urban world inhabitants. By 2030 it is estimated that the number of people living in urban spaces will have risen to almost 5 billion.⁹ In China, by 2010, it was almost half and half between the urban and rural populations, although of course the 54% of the population living in rural China produce a much lower share of its GDP.

      What this move to the cities means is that more and more people are dislocated from their roots, living in cities where they know very few people, often in neighbourhoods with very little community spirit and activity. It’s from this dislocation that isolation grows. But it is not just the migration to the cities that could be a cause of isolation – there are other migration patterns that could impact on the way we relate to work and our working communities.

      The demographic force: global migration increases

      The isolation that many workers feel in 2025 has also emerged from the dislocation of families and communities as people migrate to get better jobs or to escape war or natural disasters. It is true, of course, that people have always migrated ever since the first homo sapiens ventured from Africa across Eurasia 60,000 years ago; people have continued to migrate in order to establish new communities, move their existing communities and join other communities.¹⁰ Since that time the pace of migration has accelerated as a consequence of commercial and technological developments, and is often spiked by occasional grand economic ventures, as well as political and ecological crises. The colonisation of the Classical period, the forced migration of the transatlantic slave trade and the mass emigration from Europe to the New World were all significant in determining the present distribution of cultures across the face of the globe. We can anticipate that while the direction and strength of migration flows are unpredictable, migration will increase. The actual rate will depend on environmental factors (rising sea levels forcing people to migrate, earthquakes leaving areas uninhabitable, drought decimating areas), political factors (refugees moving away from war-torn regions) and technological developments (labour-saving inventions putting people out of work).

      Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

      Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

      Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

      Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAu4AAAR/CAIAAADLlfRBAAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJ bWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAA2lpVFh0WE1MOmNvbS5hZG9iZS54bXAAAAAAADw/eHBhY2tldCBiZWdp bj0i77u/IiBpZD0iVzVNME1wQ2VoaUh6cmVTek5UY3prYzlkIj8+IDx4OnhtcG1ldGEgeG1sbnM6 eD0iYWRvYmU6bnM6bWV0YS8iIHg6eG1wdGs9IkFkb2JlIFhNUCBDb3JlIDUuMy1jMDExIDY2LjE0 NTY2MSwgMjAxMi8wMi8wNi0xNDo1NjoyNyAgICAgICAgIj4gPHJkZjpSREYgeG1sbnM6cmRmPSJo dHRwOi8vd3d3LnczLm9yZy8xOTk5LzAyLzIyLXJkZi1zeW50YXgtbnMjIj4gPHJkZjpEZXNjcmlw dGlvbiByZGY6YWJvdXQ9IiIgeG1sbnM6eG1wTU09Imh0dHA6Ly9ucy5hZG9iZS5jb20veGFwLzEu MC9tbS8iIHhtbG5zOnN0UmVmPSJodHRwOi8vbnMuYWRvYmUuY29tL3hhcC8xLjAvc1R5cGUvUmVz b3VyY2VSZWYjIiB4bWxuczp4bXA9Imh0dHA6Ly9ucy5hZG9iZS5jb20veGFwLzEuMC8iIHhtcE1N Ok9yaWdpbmFsRG9jdW1lbnRJRD0idXVpZDo3NjQ0MzJlYi0wYTFlLWMyNGQtYWM0Yy0xOTk2OGI0 ZGI0YTciIHhtcE1NOkRvY3VtZW50SUQ9InhtcC5kaWQ6QTBFQ0ZCMTk5NjYwMTFFMzlFNUNBRUI3 RUM5Q0M4RDYiIHhtcE1NOkluc3RhbmNlSUQ9InhtcC5paWQ6QTBFQ0ZCMTg5NjYwMTFFMzlFNUNB RUI3RUM5Q0M4RDYiIHhtcDpDcmVhdG9yVG9vbD0iQWRvYmUgUGhvdG9zaG9wIENTNS4xIE1hY2lu dG9zaCI+IDx4bXBNTTpEZXJpdmVkRnJvbSBzdFJlZjppbnN0YW5jZUlEPSJ4bXAuaWlkOkY0MEU2 OUYxMzEyNzY4MTE5MTA5RUEyRDhBNEUwRjk1IiBzdFJlZjpkb2N1bWVudElEPSJ4bXAuZGlkOjBG RkQzOTY2MTUyMzY4MTE4OEM2RjZBREJBM0IyMUJDIi8+IDwv

СКАЧАТЬ