Governments and vendors alike seem to be rushing to build new cities, or retro-fit old ones to be new "digital cities", with the latest and greatest super-fast connectivity, communication and collaboration capabilities and so on all shoe-horned into a few square miles of a country's real estate. Already, we have seen the retro-fitting of cities such as Bristol in the UK, Helsinki in Finland, Antwerp in Belgium as well as Chennai and Pune in India and Shanghai in China to be as "digital" as possible.

Alongside these are plans for new, "eco-sustainable" digital cities, such as Dongtan in China and King Abdullah Economic City in Saudi Arabia - although the actual "sustainability" of the ideas in these plans leaves a lot to be desired.

Surely all of this is to be praised, as cities become centres for technological advancement and a place for improvement in the educational and economic opportunities available to a country's inhabitants? The problem is that the long term impact on each country is not really being looked at—nor is history being considered as to previous shifts in power and the impact such initiatives had on countries.

Take the UK for example. As the birthplace and heartland for the industrial revolution, the UK has a lot to offer as a historical lesson to the rest of the world. Cities such as Bristol, Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool and Glasgow grew phenomenally during the industrial revolution, pulling in people from surrounding villages to become employees for the new, vibrant companies in these cities. However, such growth overwhelmed the capabilities of basic services to keep up, and sanitation, housing and quality of life suffered. Not only this, but the new employees had come from other places—a migration which left those places under-supported.

As the majority came from rural environments, it was farming that was hardest hit, and the move of agricultural workers from being overall positive producers of food and other commodities to being industrial net consumers created food shortages and famine which took a great deal of time and eventually the automation of farming to overcome.

But all of this was some time back—so why should we be worried now? Sure, Finland, the UK and Belgium aren't going to suddenly see an influx of agricultural workers leaving their villages to arrive in the cities—all of this did happen so long ago that the retro-fit of technology is probably a good thing. The legacy of the industrial revolution followed by the financial services revolution of the 20th century still leaves a chasm between the North and the South of the UK, which may begin to be bridged by technology. But for emerging countries, where the backbone of the economy is still agriculture, the same old problems are happening again and again.

Chennai's and Pune's populations have doubled in less than 10 years, as outsiders pour into the cities in search of jobs. Shanty towns house a large number of such migrant workers, and families are broken apart as men go to the cities to search for work, leaving women and children in the villages. If families do move in to one of the cities as a unit, then it is often the case that the women and children will either end up as beggars, or working for next to nothing in sweat-shop conditions: surely not what is being aimed at through the introduction of new technology?

Some vendors talk about these digital cities being more of a "hub" than an entity on their own, but many of these hubs are only connected to other major cities, so creating a series of large cities struggling to maintain water, electricity and sanitation services to the city populations. However, others such as Sri Lanka are taking an alternative approach, trying to maintain the overall structure and environment for the country as a whole while providing improvements as the population needs it. For example, Sri Lanka has a high bandwidth wired and wireless network across the island, as well as redundant high capacity international links, and its network of "Nenasalas"—a growing number of local IT centres (over 600 as of July 2009) where locals can learn and use technology—means that there is less need for the population to move from where they are to any large conurbation: they can stay in their villages and use the technology to improve their lot.

And again, this aim of improving the individual's "lot" is key. The West's determination to turn every child into a graduate, every graduate into an entrepreneur, every entrepreneur into a boss just isn't sustainable—even in the west. Inspirational as this goal might be, for emerging countries, it could be disastrous to go down this route. To move rapidly from agriculture to a technical economy needs more than just centres of technology—the whole supporting infrastructure, the whole approach to how the new technocrats will be supported, even at just a food level—has to be addressed first. Far better to address the existing aspirations of the individual, and maximise these to the overall good of the country. If an individual is a farmer, then why not aim to make them a better farmer? If they are a net producer, then why not help them to become more efficient net producers, not tempt them to become net consumers?

Here, micro-investment organisations such as Kiva and Oikocredit provide seed money for such individuals to take steps towards their dreams—not someone else's. Technology can be a major enabler: for example, simple email or SMS can enable such individuals to talk to others in the locality that they may not have known about before, exchanging not only ideas but, for example, cereal crops for meat, root crops for fish and so on, or to get together as a co-operative to be able to offer greater volumes or greater choice of produce to commercial outlets. Why not identify export capabilities for them to gain higher margins for excess production not needed within the country itself? Call it entrepreneurial if you want—but at least it's keeping the focus on where it is needed, a sustainable, community-based system.

One thing is for sure: today's mega cities, such as Mumbai, Mexico City, Manilla and others cannot cope with a continuing influx of migrants from the rural communities. Even those cities where a degree of investment has been made in infrastructure, such as Pune, Chennai and Shanghai, are struggling. For a country's population to exchange grinding financial poverty, but a food-positive existence for grinding financial poverty combined with complete food poverty is not a viable or sustainable future.

Digital cities, if not planned correctly so as to be an enabler of the village community could bring whole countries to their knees. Digital technologies, applied across a whole country with the needs of the individual and the country in mind, can create a sustainable and viable future.