 Dear Mayor and the Ravi, the Excellencies, my honor, and the Mayors, ladies and gentlemen, one year ago, we have been to Mumbai, and our conference was at the Oberog Hotel, and we had a great, wonderful dinner at the Taj Mahal Terrace. And sometimes, the unbelievable become the cruel reality. And let me say to our friends who are here today that our swords are with them. Islamic terrorism, terrorism will never end, and we will come back to Mumbai again. Considering the rapid growth of the world's cities, which is nearly overwhelming, people may no longer speak about an urban age, but about an urban revolution. At nearly metric speeds, both wealth and poverty are increasing in the world's large metropolitan areas. And the challenges connected with this development are obvious. Today, one of six residents of big cities live in the slum. There has already been a talk of a plethora of slum. We will face them in the future. The big cities are everything, the first door, the second door, and the third door, and everything is together in one city. I think it's very tough to be a mayor of such a city, and congratulate you on what you're doing for the city of Mayarkad. But it's certain that cities nearly everywhere have a centre of strength in the global economy, and that's in short, providing important contribution to countries' prosperity. Cities are the places of hope for those who come to them every day. Over the long term, you must not disappoint them. They must be able to share our cities' prosperity. The wonderful London School of Economics, the Ricky Bidet and Deutsche Bank's Albert Hall Society, have joined forces, together with partners from Latin American cities and all over the world, to shape the urban age, so that it does not ultimately overpower us. It is therefore a great pleasure to welcome you to our eighth Urban Age Conference, this time in the great city of Sao Paulo, and in this great environment, which is full of pictures of optimism. And I think this is a very good sign that we should share the optimism of those people who have just started to build these cities. At all our conferences, we all work on finding a platform for new forms of global governance in the urban age. If they are successful, and that is what we intend to be, and that we will be successful, then we search for city planners, architects, NGOs, mayors and government representatives from Asia, Europe, Africa, the Americas and China, will together develop a ground of successful cities. I hope to miss them, we will see this. Those here today, they have all provided considerable contributions with the success of their cities. Over the course of this year, the Land School of Economics has exempted the problems and successes of Latin American cities. The Urban Age team has been to Lima, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, and formerly the Mexican city. And our investigations are converging into the South Island. Each of our conference cities can see itself reflected in other conference cities and thus gain ideas for their elections. Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, we all are responsible for the success of our cities, for securing an urban future, and I hope we will be able to live up to sit on our conference. And it's a special pleasure for me to announce Richard Sennett, who once offered me a cup of coffee, and this cup of coffee started the Urban Age. Welcome, Richard Sennett. Thank you.