Virtually every city-region in West and Central Europe has developed policies and strategies to attract, retain and encourage creative industries and knowledge-intensive services. Since most of these citiy-regions tend to see a creative knowledge economy as 'the best bet for the future', one of the main goals of such policies and strategies is increasing the international competitiveness of their city-region. Using the cities of Amsterdam, Barcelona, Birmingham, Helsinki, Leipzig, Manchester, and Munich as case studies, this book explores the spatial, economic, historical, socio-demographic, socio-cultural and political conditions that may determine whether a city-region is or can become attractive for creative and knowledge-intensive companies, and for the talented people working for or founding these companies. A comparison of the case studies and an overview of the key findings, similarities and differences which lead to policy recommendations as well as suggested directions for further research will make this book attractive to urban and regional academics, planners and students.

Creativity and the City: How the Creative Economy is Changing the City~ISBN 90-5662-461-X U.S. $37.50 / Hardcover, 8.5 x 5.5 in. / 208 pgs / 40 b&w. ~Item / March / Nonfiction and Criticism

"Twenty years of city planning progress in the United States [by] John Nolen": 19th, p. 1-44.

Virtually every city and region in West and Central Europe has developed policies and strategies to attract, retain and encourage creative industries and knowledge-intensive services. This book explores the spatial, economic, historical, socio-demographic, socio-cultural and political conditions that may determine whether a city-region is or can become attractive for creative and knowledge-intensive companies. Using seven European cities as case studies, the book highlights similarities and differences, and makes policy recommendations.

"Many practitioners and advocates have welcomed culture's new prominence in policy discourse and the new markets it offers for cultural production. Others, however, see a danger that instrumental justifications for cultural funding risk overlooking the intrinsic qualities of culture, reducing it to an 'input' and blunting any radical edges. This book asks: Are we are at 'a new moment' for cultural policy? Leading international thinkers from countries including Australia, Britain and the United States provide a timely overview of these issues, debating and discussing the directions that cultural policy should take in the future."--Back cover.

Melbourne is now coming to the fore as a design hotspot. With three and a half million inhabitants, it is on a scale that is livable and diverse. Its rich and varied cultural intimacy has enabled it to build up a unique dynamism, which is set to shift the entire design agenda of the world - much like Barcelona did in the 1980s and Antwerp did in the 1990s. Melbourne is to be the city of the noughties. The intense plurality of Melbourne's recent design culture is due to have a vast impact on the way in which we think about city regions and living in them. This is a story of wonderful spaces: in civic and institutional buildings; in galleries, bars, clubs and restaurants; in one of the world's tallest residential apartment buildings; in beach houses and mountain shacks; in workshops and studios; and in international sports venues. As Melbourne hosts the Commonwealth games in 2006, a vast influx of visitors will be experiencing these spaces for the first time. Through luscious photography and an accessible text, Design City Melbourne is devised not only to illustrate a wide range of fascinating interiors and their architecural matrices, but also to describe the people behind them and how these spaces support the vital culture of this uniquely mixed and cosmopolitan city. A metropolis that is situated in the same time zone as China, and which is pioneering in its European colonial matrix the admixture of new Asian urban forms.

Covers all aspects of cities, their suburbs, and other urban areas. Includes urban economics, urban planning, urban architecture, urban ecology, urban transportation systems, urban politics, and urban social relations.