Cities are not only home to around half of the global population but also major centers of economic activity and innovation. Yet, so far there has been no consensus of what a city really is. Substantial differences in the way cities, metropolitan, urban, and rural areas are defined across countries hinder robust international comparisons and an accurate monitoring of SDGs. The report Cities in the World: A New Perspective on Urbanisation addresses this void and provides new insights on urbanisation by applying for the first time two new definitions of human settlements to the entire globe: the Degree of Urbanisation and the Functional Urban Area.

Metropolitan areas are home to a significant proportion of the world’s population and its economic output. Taking Mexico as a case study and weaving in comparisons from Latin America and developed countries, this book explores current trends and policy issues around urbanisation, metropolisation, economic development and city-region governance. Despite their fundamental economic relevance, the analysis and monitoring of metropolitan economies in Mexico and other countries in the Global South under a comparative perspective are relatively scarce. This volume contains empirical analysis based on comparative perspectives with relation to international experiences. It will be of interest to advanced students, researchers and policymakers in urban policy, urban economics, regional studies, economic geography and Latin American studies.

Across the US, cities and metropolitan areas are facing huge economic and competitive challenges that Washington won't, or can't, solve. The good news is that networks of metropolitan leaders – mayors, business and labor leaders, educators, and philanthropists – are stepping up and powering the nation forward. These state and local leaders are doing the hard work to grow more jobs and make their communities more prosperous, and they're investing in infrastructure, making manufacturing a priority, and equipping workers with the skills they need. In The Metropolitan Revolution, Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley highlight success stories and the people behind them. · New York City: Efforts are under way to diversify the city's vast economy · Portland: Is selling the "sustainability" solutions it has perfected to other cities around the world · Northeast Ohio: Groups are using industrial-age skills to invent new twenty-first-century materials, tools, and processes · Houston: Modern settlement house helps immigrants climb the employment ladder · Miami: Innovators are forging strong ties with Brazil and other nations · Denver and Los Angeles: Leaders are breaking political barriers and building world-class metropolises · Boston and Detroit: Innovation districts are hatching ideas to power these economies for the next century The lessons in this book can help other cities meet their challenges. Change is happening, and every community in the country can benefit. Change happens where we live, and if leaders won't do it, citizens should demand it. The Metropolitan Revolution was the 2013 Foreword Reviews Bronze winner for Political Science.

Annotation Anderson and Wassmer (economics, U. of Nebraska-Lincoln and public policy and administration, California State U.-Sacramento, respectively) examine the use and effectiveness of local economic development incentives within a region or metropolitan area through a case examination of Detroit, Michigan. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Coping with Adversity addresses the question of why some metropolitan-area regional economies are resilient in the face of economic shocks and chronic distress while others are not. It is particularly concerned with what public policies make a difference in whether a region is resilient. The authors employ a wide range of techniques to examine the experience of all metropolitan area economies from 1978–2014. They then look closely at six American metropolitan areas to determine what strategies were employed, which of these contributed to regional economic resilience, and which did not. Charlotte, North Carolina, Seattle, Washington, and Grand Forks, North Dakota, are cases of economic resilience, while Cleveland, Ohio, Hartford, Connecticut, and Detroit, Michigan, are cases of economic nonresilience. The six case studies include hard data on employment, production, and demographics, as well as material on public policies and actions. The authors conclude that there is little that can done in the short term to counter economic shocks; most regions simply rebound naturally after a relatively short period of time. However, they do find that many regions have successfully emerged from periods of prolonged economic distress and that there are policies that can be applied to help them do so. Coping with Adversity will be important reading for all those concerned with local and regional economic development, including public officials, urban planners, and economic developers.

This book addresses the challenge of securing high-paying jobs for American workers. It examines the impacts of a wide range of state and local characteristics—such as low taxes, high-skilled workforce, reliance on manufacturing, and even nice weather—on the economic development of U.S. regions. The author provides a detailed account for each factor’s impact on the growth of good jobs. The research focuses on U.S. metropolitan areas and states, tracking employment and income change in these regions from 1990 to the near present. While providing numerous best principles for state and regional policy, the author uncovers the keys to supporting high-paying U.S. jobs in an important book that will prove invaluable to elected officials, economic development practitioners, and students interested in the pursuit of economic development.