The front page of today’s Chicago Tribune has an article that is the first in an extended series of economic-themed travel articles to be written in the coming weeks by Tribune foreign correspondent Evan Osnos.  His journey will take him into the vast Western part of the country.  Today’s article, “Rural exodus to Chongqing part of revolutionary global shift” is about the mass migration of peasants to “infant mega-cities” in China, those like Chongqing that hardly anyone has heard of (unlike Shanghai or Beijing) but that boast populations over 5 million.  This smart article points out that sometime next year the UN predicts the world will, for the first time in its history, have more people living in urban centers rather than rural areas.  This is significant, Osnos writes, because a migrant from rural China who moves into a city consumes three times the energy in the urban center.  The strain on the planet will be enormous, perhaps catastrophic.  But no one can deny the improvements in the daily lives of China’s peasants and their families; for many, the only way to escape deep poverty is to migrate to the cities.  

       This got me thinking about sustainability, but also about the way many of us in the West view these poorer nations and their multitudes of impoverished people.  I think that, in many respects, we want the poor to stay poor—not so that they literally struggle but so that the country can retain a similar feel as it has had, hence making travel there authentic and, well, a stark contrast to our Westernized lives.  

      It reminded me of a conversation I had with a Moroccan friend while visiting his nation’s capital of Rabat with him in May.  Along the river, at the base of an antique fortress that looks out the Atlantic, a giant mega mall is being built, equipped with Western stores, restaurants, an ice skating rink, and other amenities we know belong in big malls.  I cringed, slightly, when Mohammed told me this.             

      “Well what do you want?” he said.”  “You can’t expect the country not to build and improve the lives of the people just because you want to visit a Third World country.”

      Mohammed was absolutely right, and I felt wrong about the way I had marginalized his country and people.  But uncountable conversations with other travelers have revealed that many people think like this, consciously or not.  

      It’s a big ole web with no clear answers, this mingling of sustainability, globalization, poverty, economic improvement, the environment, and quality of life.  

      Talking about it, reading about it—it all helps.