What is importance of politics and politicians to the people living in cities in late 1900s?

Many intellectuals and many of those working in development believe that the size of the world's population and its accelerated growth is the greatest problem and the gravest threat to humanity. Clearly, the ratio of the number of people to the amount of food available has an impact on nutrition, but how do these two factors interact? At the end of the eighteenth century the British political economist Thomas Malthus speculated that population growth could soon surpass production and food supply. By the end of the twentieth century, this had not happened, but malnutrition was widespread.

As cities and their problems grew rapidly the political environment changed. No longer did politicians run small manageable cities. These were big cities with big city problems and the government structures designed to cope with these problems grew. As the government grew it became the livelihood for many professional politicians. Some would argue that these politicians were corrupt, they would argue that they provided a needed service.

Currently, as of february 2016, an american traveling in france would be by the exchange rate. the weakness of the euro and the strength of the us dollar means that items in france cost less to an american than they otherwise would. of course, if this trend reverses and the us dollar weakens and the euro strengthens, such as was happening in early 2008, an american traveling in france would have an adverse experience because items would cost relatively more.