Universities are being seen as key urban institutions by researchers and policy makers around the world. They are global players with significant local direct and indirect impacts – on employment, the built environment, business innovation and the wider society. The University and the City explores these impacts and in the process seeks to expose the extent to which universities are just in the city, or part of the city and actively contributing to its development. The precise expression of the emerging relationship between universities and cities is highly contingent on national and local circumstances. The book is therefore grounded in original research into the experience of the UK and selected English provincial cities, with a focus on the role of universities in addressing the challenges of environmental sustainability, health and cultural development. These case studies are set in the context of reviews of the international evidence on the links between universities and the urban economy, their role in ‘place making’ and in the local community. The book reveals the need to build a stronger bridge between policy and practice in the fields of urban development and higher education underpinned by sound theory if the full potential of universities as urban institutions is to be realised. Those working in the field of development therefore need to acquire a better understanding of universities and those in higher education of urban development. The insights from both sides contained in The University and the City provide a platform on which to build well founded university and city partnerships across the world.

The first broad survey of the history of urban higher education in America. Today, a majority of American college students attend school in cities. But throughout the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries, urban colleges and universities faced deep hostility from writers, intellectuals, government officials, and educators who were concerned about the impact of cities, immigrants, and commuter students on college education. In Universities and Their Cities, Steven J. Diner explores the roots of American colleges’ traditional rural bias. Why were so many people, including professors, uncomfortable with nonresident students? How were the missions and activities of urban universities influenced by their cities? And how, improbably, did much-maligned urban universities go on to profoundly shape contemporary higher education across the nation? Surveying American higher education from the early nineteenth century to the present, Diner examines the various ways in which universities responded to the challenges offered by cities. In the years before World War II, municipal institutions struggled to “build character” in working class and immigrant students. In the postwar era, universities in cities grappled with massive expansion in enrollment, issues of racial equity, the problems of “disadvantaged” students, and the role of higher education in addressing the “urban crisis.” Over the course of the twentieth century, urban higher education institutions greatly increased the use of the city for teaching, scholarly research on urban issues, and inculcating civic responsibility in students. In the final decades of the century, and moving into the twenty-first century, university location in urban areas became increasingly popular with both city-dwelling students and prospective resident students, altering the long tradition of anti-urbanism in American higher education. Drawing on the archives and publications of higher education organizations and foundations, Universities and Their Cities argues that city universities brought about today’s commitment to universal college access by reaching out to marginalized populations. Diner shows how these institutions pioneered the development of professional schools and PhD programs. Finally, he considers how leaders of urban higher education continuously debated the definition and role of an urban university. Ultimately, this book is a considered and long overdue look at the symbiotic impact of these two great American institutions: the city and the university.

This book explores the impact of localities and regions on universities and shows how the diversity of the higher education landscape is critically affected by the geophysical character of regions and their differentiated economies and cultures; regional inequalities bear heavily on universities' strategy-making. A study of the interrelationship between higher and further education argues that from a regional perspective a change to a tertiary education system in England (following Wales) would create the conditions for better local and regional coordination. Universities make a significant contribution to 'levelling up' through technology transfer and the creation of innovation hubs but the contribution of locally or regionally based students who on graduation return to disadvantaged communities rather than seek employment elsewhere should be recognised also as a longer term step to redressing regional inequality. The book argues strongly that the time has come to decentralise the governance of a re-aligned tertiary system to regions and identifies the move to create metro mayors and combined authorities as providing the appropriate vehicle to release new initiative from regional sources. It cites the success of decentralisation to Scotland and Wales as offering relevant models for scrutiny. The authors draw on 12 UK widely differentiated university case studies, a survey of further education and a study of three continental European comparators (Germany, Ireland and Norway) to develop the argument.

As the world becomes more interconnected through travel and electronic communication, many believe that physical places will become less important. But as Mario Polèse argues in The Wealth and Poverty of Regions, geography will matter more than ever before in a world where distance is allegedly dead. This provocative book surveys the globe, from London and Cape Town to New York and Beijing, contending that regions rise—or fall—due to their location, not only within nations but also on the world map. Polèse reveals how concentrations of industries and populations in specific locales often result in minor advantages that accumulate over time, resulting in reduced prices, improved transportation networks, increased diversity, and not least of all, “buzz”—the excitement and vitality that attracts ambitious people. The Wealth and Poverty of Regions maps out how a heady mix of size, infrastructure, proximity, and cost will determine which urban centers become the thriving metropolises of the future, and which become the deserted cities of the past. Engagingly written, the book provides insight to the past, present, and future of regions.

This timely book explores how universities are establishing living laboratories for sustainable development, and examines the communication networks and knowledge infrastructures that underpin impact both on and beyond the campus.

This book explores cities and intra-regional relational dynamics to challenge common representations of urban development ‘success’ and ‘failure’. It provides innovative alternative relations and development strategies that reimagine the subordinate status of secondary cities.

This innovative book addresses the leadership and management challenges of maximising the contribution of universities to civil society both locally and globally. It does this by developing a model of the civic university as an academic concept, drawing out practical lessons for university management on how to embed civic engagement in the heartland of the university. To this end, the contributors compare experiences and reports on a developmental process in eight institutions: University College London and Newcastle University in the UK, Amsterdam and Groningen Universities in the Netherlands, Aalto and Tampere Universities in Finland and Trinity College Dublin and Dublin Institute of Technology in Ireland. It will be of interest to academics of politics, public policy and management studies, as well as having relevance to policymakers in the field.