Thinking bigger should be a prerequisite in a globally connected world. But globalism gave big a bad name while the term local became a shining hero.
The journalist Neil Peirce has understood this duality long before cities and metro regions became the topic du jour. In his book
Citistates he postulated in 1993 that cities and their metro regions would become the global competitors and engines of prosperity while nation states would fade in the background. Now, 20 years later, the majority of the world's population lives in cities. Nation States are stuck in procedural gridlock in Europe and here in the US while cities (and States) drive innovation and test what national governments are unable to do. But neither in Peirce's definition nor in the new world statistic means "city" just the jurisdictions in their arbitrary boundaries but city is defined as the metropolitan region, sometimes as a whole megalopolis.