New Perspectives in Science Education

The 21st Century's main power centers are the cities. More than 52% of the world’s population lives in cities, in particular in the megacities which have a population over 10 million people and is still growing. According to various research and forecasts, the main economic concentration will be in 40 megacities and global centers. Based on various competitiveness analyzes and indices, global city centers and city networks are outlined, but if we look at other aspects of urban development like complexity, connectivity, creativity, technological development, viability, green cities, pedestrian and child friendly cities, creative and cultural centers, cultural spaces and knowledge centers, we get a city competitiveness index with quite new complex indicators. The research shows this result. In addition to the megacities and the global centers, with the investigation of functionality we got 64 so called ‘fusiononopolis’ (i.e. fusion-polis) which stand for the most decisive economic power centers of the 21st century. In this city competition Asian centers considerably rise, as the world's functional city competitiveness index is being formed.

Keywords: Megacity Networks, Power Centers, Creative Networks;