The Growth of Cities

Contemporary cities are of at least two kinds: those that are vibrant and growing and those that are lagging. While this is nothing new the reasons are, at least in part, different than in past generations. This book is a collection of "modern classics" about the forces of growth in the late 20th and early 21st Century in general and more specifically in agglomerated concentrations including cities. Human capital, agglomeration, knowledge spread or spillovers, industrial clusters, concentration of creative people, and global competition driven by a huge expansion of low cost labor and explosive innovation all play a role. The book provides most of the best material that has been published on these topics and their role in city growth and decline. It is a collection all students of the city and growth should have in their personal library.’ – Roger Stough, George Mason University
To understand why some regions grow and others stagnate, we need to understand the interactions between economic growth, economic geography and the economics of innovation. Each of these individual approaches has strengths and weaknesses, but when integrated it is possible, as evidenced by this volume, to develop an appropriate model of technology-led regional economic development.
This authoritative collection presents a selection of key previously published articles which investigate these three perspectives. The volume explores the importance of human capital, entrepreneurship, clusters, and competition and public policy to the growth of cities.
The editor has written a new introduction which highlights the contribution of each article, and calls for a closer collaboration between economics and regional science in order to develop a new approach to the study of the growth of cities.