Urban Economy

In a call for papers, for the special issue to be devoted to " Urban Economy " late in 2015, that the Economies editors issued recently, I noted the increased attention that has been given to urban economies during the past quarter century. This is concomitant with the increased importance and role in policy that cities have attained. This is, in part, due to the diminished capacity of national and sub-national governments to find the funds needed for urban projects and services, and in part to the understanding that cities are the key to the economies and societies of most if not all nations. At first there was a fascination with the phenomenon of the largest of our cities—world cities, global cities, and most recently mega-cities and mega-city regions. Peter Taylor, Saskia Sassen, and a host of other researchers have gained prominence through their study and analysis of cities with populations in excess of 10 million. Partly, they were celebrated because of their roles as command centers or corporate headquarters centers or just their astonishing size. Much was made of agglomeration economies that are gained only through largeness. These large cities have airport hubs, collections of major universities, multiple clusters of technology-intensive production, and impressive collections of cultural institutions. They are also attractive to young, educated, technology savvy, and highly mobile workers who are the key element in any future urban economy. In bench-marking studies they were always at the head of the table of competitive cities, and so forth. Recently, however, questions were raised about the efficiency and viability of these largest of our cities. Were mega-cities beginning to look more like dinosaurs and less like lions? Were agglomeration economies turning into diseconomies, with increased congestion, pollution, and social marginalization? In regression analysis studies there was no positive correlation found between city size and competitiveness. Being well connected is not the same as being competitive. These concerns have shifted some of the attention of researchers from mega-cities to smaller cities, to cities with a population of 1–5 million or even to those with just hundreds of thousands of residents. Are smaller cities more agile, are they more pleasant places to raise a family, are they more efficient places to work in collaboration with other workers or firms? Smaller cities find that they can gain some of the benefits of location in a very large city through networking with other …