National Geographic

THIS INTERVIEW WAS EDITED FOR LENGTH AND CLARITY.PHOTO: VICTORIA WILL|FROM THE EDITOR|A TALK WITH MICHAEL BLOOMBERGSusan Goldberg: Roughly two-thirds ofpeople will live in cities by 2050. Thereare 31 cities now that are consideredmegacities, with 10 million people ormore; by 2030 there’ll be 41 cities of thatsize. Why are people flocking to cities?Michael Bloomberg: The marketplaceis clearly saying this is where we want tobe. Big cities provide culture; they can bemuch more cosmopolitan and give you afaster pace of life. It’s not for everybody;some people want a different pace, andthere’s nothing wrong with that. I hadthe governor of Montana sitting righthere yesterday—the whole populationWHY CITIES ARE LEADING THE WAYAs New York City’smayor from 2002to 2013, MichaelBloomberg pushed sus-tainability. Now 75, thebusinessman and philan-thropist has co-authoreda book, Climate of Hope,in which he says that“cities, businesses, andcitizens can save theplanet.” Although I wasan editor at BloombergNews for several years,I hadn’t talked in depthwith its outspokenfounder until we satdown for this interview.``````of the state is about a million people. Imean, that’s smaller than the Bronx!The beauty of the world is diversity. Thebeauty of America is basically we getalong. There’s lots of places in the worldwhere diversity is not exactly tolerated.``````SG: I have an off-the-wall question.Say your doctor tells you that you havedeveloped life-threatening allergies toNew York, London, and Boston, but yourmental health is dependent on living ina big city. Where would you go?MB: Well, one of the things to consideris suicide.