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Francisco every other weekend to attend Wharton's Executive MBA program while another flies from Dubai to Chicago with the same frequency to be a part of the Kel- logg program at Northwestern. IE had a student who flew in fort- nightly from New Delhi. While these "MBA Air War- riors" may be the exception, there is a clear trend of leading busi- ness schools launching programs with modules scattered around the globe to expose students to busi- ness dynamics in pivotal markets. One particularly ambitious pro- gram takes students to ten cities on four continents. I did a small calculation. To participate in this program, a London-based student would rack up air miles resulting in 9.7 tons of CO2 emissions—almost the entire annual per capita emis- sions of a European and five times the annual emissions of an Indian. Are we hypocritical if we fly stu- dents from around the world to Brazil for a module on the econom- ics of rainforest conservation? Recently, I was struck by an ad in The Economist in which the Whar- ton School proudly declared that participants fly a total of 3.8 million miles a year to attend its executive education programs in Philadelphia. Offsetting these emissions would require about 88,000 mature trees. Companies are using technolo- gies to reduce business travel so that they can save money, minimize staff time away from the office, and lessen their environmental impact. There are many reasons why busi- ness schools should embrace tech- nology even more, and adjusting to a resource-constrained world is certainly one of them. Widespread Urbanization In 2011, humanity passed a mile- stone: For the first time in the his- tory of our species, more than half of us lived in cities. Rapid urban- ization, particularly in developing countries, drives much of the previ- ously discussed economic growth in emerging nations. It's also an important reason for the environ- mental challenges described above. Impressive statistics illustrate the magnitude of change. Between now and 2030, 400 million Chinese will move to cities, which means that the country will have 225 cities of more than a million people. By compari- son, Western Europe today has 11 such cities. One often cited statistic is that China will have 20 cities of more than 20 million citizens by 2020. Similarly, India will add 215 million city dwellers by 2030, more than the entire population of Brazil. The biggest urbanization push will happen in Africa, however, with Abidjan, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, and Luanda all expected to sur- pass the 10 million mark by 2025, joining existing megacities such as Cairo, Lagos, and Kinshasa. Historically, urbanization has been good news for higher educa- tion. A greater concentration of people lowers the unit cost of pro- viding services, and a critical mass of students is a prerequisite for universities to flourish. Particularly for post-graduate business schools, however, current urbanization trends pose a challenge. As business activity gravitates toward global hubs, schools located in or near these leading cities will have privileged access to compa- nies, information, and recruits. But what about the rest? Will schools in Charlottesville, Cranfield, Hanover, and New Haven be at a disadvan- tage when it comes to competing with their peers in Singapore, Lon- don, Shanghai, and New York? How will schools in São Paulo, Cairo, and Jakarta leverage their vibrant localities? In a recent editorial, Della Brad- shaw of the Financial Times pon- dered how much location matters for the future of business education. As with everything, though, constraints are a key stimulus of innovation: The Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill launched a rigorous online MBA program so it could serve talented students far beyond Raleigh. Other schools need to con- sider their own creative solutions. BizEd September/October 2012 23