The familiar shape of western cities is changing dramatically. For long times the urban core was taken for granted as the focal point for international contacts and day-to-day activities in the region. Currently, the urban scope is transforming into multi centred forms at metropolitan scale. The transition is not just a matter of spatial form, it is reflecting social, economic and cultural processes. The question is what new identities may develop in such changing historical conditions of ...

Virtually every city-region in West and Central Europe has developed policies and strategies to attract, retain and encourage creative industries and knowledge-intensive services. Since most of these citiy-regions tend to see a creative knowledge economy as 'the best bet for the future', one of the main goals of such policies and strategies is increasing the international competitiveness of their city-region. Using the cities of Amsterdam, Barcelona, Birmingham, Helsinki, Leipzig, Manchest...

Urban policy makers are increasingly striving to strengthen the economic competitiveness of their cities. Currently, they do that mainly in the field of the creative knowledge economy - arts, media, entertainment, creative business services, architecture, publishing, design; and ICT, R&D, finance, and law. This book is about the policies that help to realise such objectives: policies driven by classic location theory, cluster policies, ‘creative class’ policies aimed at attracting talent, ...

The book investigates the impact on the competitiveness of cities developing creative industries (arts, media, entertainment, creative business services, architects, publishers, designers) and knowledge-intensive industries (ICT, R&D, finance, law). It provides significant new knowledge to the theoretical and practical understanding of the conditions necessary to stimulate "creative knowledge" cities.The editors compare the socio-economic developments, experiences and strategies in...

Growing inequalities in Europe are a major challenge threatening the sustainability of urban communities and the competiveness of European cities. While the levels of socio-economic segregation in European cities are still modest compared to some parts of the world, the poor are increasingly concentrating spatially within capital cities across Europe. An overlooked area of research, this book offers a systematic and representative account of the spatial dimension of rising inequalities in ...

Urban Segregation and the Welfare State examines ethnic and socio-economic segregation patterns, social polarisation, and social exclusion in major cities in the Western world. Contributors from across North America and Europe provide in-depth analysis of particular cities, ranging from Johannesburg, Chicago and Toronto to Amsterdam, Stockholm and Belfast. The authors highlight the social problems in and of cities, indicating differences between nation-states in terms of economic ...

In contemporary European and American urban policy and politics and in academic research it is typically assumed that spatial concentrations of poor households and/or ethnic minority households will have negative effects upon the opportunities to improve the social conditions of those who are living in these concentrations. Since the level of concentration tends to be correlated with the level of spatial segregation the 'debate on segregation' is also linked to the social opportunity discu...

Creative industries have become fundamental in signalling the economic wellbeing of cities and urban regions. Workers who are attracted to the sector tend to have strong preferences when it comes to the neighbourhoods they want to live in, with factors such as job availability and urban amenities playing a large part in their decision.Skills and Cities analyses these factors and looks at the implications for urban and regional policy across a range of European cities. Drawing concl...