How important is location to a business school? Does it matter if you are rooted in one particular city or country? It is a topic that is creeping on to the business school agenda because, as we know, demographics are changing dramatically.
There are now a mind-boggling 7bn people on the planet. What is more, that figure could double again by the end of the century, with the largest growth occurring in developing countries. Where will people live? What kind of lives will they have? How many will pursue higher education?
The dean of the Indian School of Business gave me an alarming statistic recently. Only about 30 per cent of people in India live in urban areas, compared with 82 per cent in the US. India is expecting between 250m and 300m people – close to the population of the US – to migrate to cities in the next 20-25 years.