exurban
Only if everyone tries to live like Americans, specifically Americans in the Sun Belt where exurban dwellers have the largest carbon and eco-footprint in the world--probably twenty times the footprint of your average Hong Konger (city in the picture). Transferring rural dwellers into dense cities reduces their eco- and energy-footprint, all other things being equal. Of course concomitant with most people in China/Asia etc becoming urbanites is an increase in living conditions which means consumerism, but that is another issue--do some of the posters here propose only they get to benefit from modernity?
