Plenty has been written on the competitiveness of megacities, capital cities, and regional hubs. Cities in developing countries have not yet received the same attention – this book fills that gap. An international team of expert academics have come together to present a comprehensive study of the competitiveness of cities in the developing world. Spanning Asia, Africa, and Latin America, this book homes in on specific city cases and examines how they relate to the rest of the global economy. The focus is on acknowledging their unique contexts, while drawing out commonalities, and ultimately identifying ways for them to enhance their competitiveness, wellbeing, and sustainability. This volume will be valuable reading to advanced students, researchers, and policymakers in urban and regional studies, economic geography, and economic development.

During the past 25 years the burden of managing economic policy for competitiveness has devolved to cities and to urban regions. National governments have increasingly been focused on staving off fiscal collapse. Mayors and local administrations have become very creative and active in looking after the state of their local economy and have developed extensive agencies for inter-city cooperation and action. This book explores this evolving role of cities and urban regions. Intelligent and rational policy must be based on an accurate understanding of the situation at hand and of the economic theory that can be utilized in the assessment of the most effective means that can be deployed. This book examines the theoretical contributions of economists and geographers and through the analyses of the performance of various cities will give the reader an understanding of the logic behind rational policy formation. Evaluation of a city’s relative competitiveness is a controversial matter and this book provides a full treatment of the various approaches. Finally, it examines the experiences with competitiveness of several cities in North America and in Europe. Urban Competitiveness: Theory and Practice confirms that many cities in trying times do have a mechanism for enhancing their competitiveness and can work to create the sort of economic life the city’s residents want.

The factors that make some cities more successful has become an increasingly important policy issue. This book is the first to explore facets of competitiveness in a systematic way that combines theory, evidence and policy implications. Bringing together experts on urban economic performance, it provides a new look at urban competitiveness.

Cities are becoming the wealth producing centers of national economies. Increasing the operational efficiency of the city will bring a competitive edge to the whole system. Yet, many city subsystems cannot work together, creating significant problems and inefficiencies. City Competitiveness and Improving Urban Subsystems: Technologies and Applications uses information science perspectives to improve working subsystems in transportation, sewage, electricity, water, communication, education, health, governance, and infrastructure since their efficient and synchronized operation is vital for a competitive city. This pioneering approach will interest researchers, professionals, and policymakers in urban economy, regional planning, and information science disciplines who wish to improve the competitiveness of their cities.

Much recent research in Urban Studies has concentrated on the notion of the ‘global city’ but discussion has also covered a larger set of mega cities, with populations in excess of 10 million. This analysis has begged the question of the optimal size for a city – is larger always better? Smaller Cities explores the advantages and disadvantages of different sized cities, trying to determine their place in the global economy and hierarchy. How can smaller cities gain or retain their competitiveness in a world of large cities? In a globalized world, the nation has perhaps been diminished as an economic actor, with fiscal shortcomings and political gridlock leaving cities more or less on their own in the task of enhancing their competitiveness and improving the economic lives of their residents. This book argues that smaller cities of varying population can be important actors in competitiveness and aims to bring attention to an area often overlooked by researchers. In short, are Pittsburgh, San Diego and Austin less competitive than London and Mumbai? This volume will be of interest to students, researchers, and city professionals who work in urban economy and urban geography.

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, as well as policies that connect to pathways, place and personal networks. The experiences and policy strategies of 13 city-regions across Europe have been investigated: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Birmingham, Budapest, Dublin, Helsinki, Leipzig, Milan, Munich, Poznan, Riga, Sofia and Toulouse. All have different histories and roles: capital cities and secondary cities; cities with different economies and industries; port-based cities and land-locked cities. And all 13 have different cultural, political and welfare state traditions. Through this wide set of contexts, Place-making and Policies for Competitive Citiescontributes to the debate about the development of creative knowledge cities, their economic growth and competitiveness and advocates the development of context-sensitive tailored approaches. Chapter authors from the 13 European cities rigorously evaluate, reformulate and test assumptions behind old and new policies. This solidly-grounded and policy-focused study on the urban policy of place-making highlights practices for different contexts in managing knowledge-intensive cities and, by drawing on the varied experiences from across Europe, it establishes the state-of-the-art for both academic and policy debates in a fast-moving field.

World population and the number of city dwellers are steadily growing. Globalization and digitalization lead to an increased competition for skilled and creative labor and other economic resources. This is true not only for firms, but increasingly also for cities. The book elaborates on resulting challenges and opportunities for urban management from the European perspective, and discusses theories, methods and tools from business economics to cope with them. Contributions in this volume come from scholars and practitioners of economics, business administration and urban management, and cover aspects ranging from urban dynamics to city marketing. They draw on experiences from several European cities and regions, and discuss strategies to improve city performance including Open Government, Smart City, cooperation and innovation. The book project was initiated and carried out by the Center for Advanced Studies in Management (CASiM), the interdisciplinary research center of HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management. It is addressed to scholars and managers in Europe and beyond, who will benefit from the scientific rigor and useful practical insights of the book.