Bøker i Regions and Cities-serien

This book engages with current debates on 'planetary urbanization' and the nature of urban political theory, but notably, considers the implications of illiberalism on space, territory, and power. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Territory, Politics, Governance.

The Randstad metropolitan region encompassing Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht in the western Netherlands is regarded worldwide as a model of a 'successful' polycentric metropolis. It is widely cited as an example of how a region of interconnected small cities can effectively compete globally by providing complementary functions which together match the power of large monocentric cities. The methods of strategic spatial planning, regional design and strategic projects that are said to underpin this polycentric metropolis are used as models for practitioners and students around the world.But is this high reputation deserved? Does the Randstad really function as a polycentric metropolis? The operation of the Randstad as a polycentric networked region is controversial both in terms of the actual strength of relations between its component parts, and the value of promoting polycentricity in policy. What are the costs and benefits of a Randstad metropolis? Does polycentricity improve the performance of the region in economic, social and environmental terms? How has the polycentric metropolis evolved and what part is played by its delta location? Has spatial planning made a difference in the form and operation of the region today? How will this spatial configuration fare in the face of the climate crisis and need to create healthy cities and regions? Is there benefit in pursuing the idea of a polycentric metropolis in government policy and action, and how?These questions are of critical interest within the Netherlands but experience in the Randstad offers valuable insights to many other complex urban regions around the world. This book will provide a critical analysis of the Randstad and lessons for strategic planning in other metropolitan regions.

In recent decades, the importance of creative cluster development has gained recognition from national and regional governments. Increasingly, governments have been investing in initiatives and urban development plans that aim to create or support localized creative industries.

Current debates about city-regions tend to renew long-standing arguments that policy-making ought to be organised around more functional urban areas. This collection draws on evidence from the US, Australia, the UK and the Netherlands to focus on how city region spaces and their governance institutions are changing. This book was originally published as a Special Issue of Regional Studies.

This book brings together political scientists and geographers to create a mutually fertilizing dialogue, which will advance our understanding of territorial designs. The chapters originally published as a special issue in Territory, Politics, Governance.

This book is designed to broaden and deepen the understanding of the current and future structure and geography of the information technology industry in the Asia Pacific region.

The contributions included in this book explore the emergence of entrepreneurship policies from a transatlantic comparative perspective and address different aspects of entrepreneurship policies including local entrepreneurship policies and the relationship between knowledge-based industries and entrepreneurship policies.

European macro-regions, Euroregions and other forms of inter-regional, cross-border cooperation have helped to shape new scenarios and new relational spaces which may generate opportunities for economic development, while redefining the political and economic meaning of national borders. This book is based on a number of key case studies which are crucial to understanding the complex web of political, economic and cultural factors that shape the heterogeneous picture of Europe's new geography.

Innovation varies fundamentally between countries - and public policies can be determined according to different societies' needs (e.g. energy technology, environmental technologies). This comparison between countries and continents featuring a range of world experts helps develop a fuller picture of innovations and their social basis.

The articles in this book are selected from Territory, Politics, Governance to survey many of the dilemmas and questions that haunt the concept of territory even as its current efflorescence in political discourse ignores them.

Planning Regional Futures is an intellectual call to engage planners to critically explore what planning is, and should be, in how cities and regions are planned.This is in a context where planning is seen to face powerful challenges - professionally, intellectually and practically - in ways arguably not seen before: planning is no longer solely the domain of professional planners but opened-up to a diverse group of actors; the link between the study of cities and regions, which traditionally had a disciplinary home in planning schools and the like, steadily eroded as research increasingly takes place in interdisciplinary research institutes; the advent of real-time modelling posing fundamental challenges for the type of long-term perspective that planning has traditionally afforded; 'regional planning' and its mixed record of achievement; and, the link between 'region' and 'planning' becoming decoupled as alternative regional (and other spatial) approaches to planning have emerged.This book takes up the intellectual and practical challenge of planning regional futures, moving beyond the narrow confines of existing debate and providing a forum for debating what planning is, and should be, for in how we plan cities and regions.The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Regional Studies.