Is the Oscar-winning movie Slumdog Millionaire just a Hollywood fantasy? K. Laxmi Narayan, an expert in Indian urbanization at the University of Hyderabad, doesn’t think so. He reports that half of Mumbai residents live in slums and warns that both Indian cities and the countryside are chronically overcrowded.
History shows that during economic crises migrants suffer. Like their predecessors in the 1930s and the 1970s, many migrants are now returning home.
Tens of millions of migrants have left the Chinese countryside for the cities. China scholar Weiping Wu explains why this is beneficial to China, but could also create problems in the future.
Since its foundation, the United States has been the world's "melting pot." The U.S. remains a multicultural nation, but migration patterns have changed. See the latest trends.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, over 1.5 million people – mostly women – have left eastern Germany to seek jobs in the West. This undercuts the economic future of a region already saddled with low fertility, unemployment, and industrial decline.
