But the most significant change of the next decade should be the dramatic increase in worldwide connectivity via the Internet. The online community is projected to grow from 2 billion users in 2010 to 5 billion by 2020. Three billion new minds are about to join the global brain. What will they dream? What will they discover? What will they desire? These are minds that the rest of society has never had access to before. Their collective economic and creative boost should unleash the most powerful abundance force of all.

The worldwide move to the Internet goes hand in hand with a move to cities. By 2050, 70 percent of the world will live in cities. According to calculations by physicist Geoffrey West of the Santa Fe Institute, when a city doubles in size, the rate of innovation (as measured by new patents) increases by 15 percent.