Overall, this special issue provides insights into the mutually constitutive ways in which rapid economic development associated with industrialisation drives institutional change, migration and mobility, and, finally, altered relationships between – and conceptions of – rural and urban. The following papers pose important conceptual, normative as well as practical, policy‐relevant questions relating to the human consequences of these processes and point to the applications of population research – a central objective of this journal. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.