A World in Emergence: Cities and Regions in the 21st Century - Softcover

`This book, although relatively short, is a tour de force. The book is elegantly written, offering a persuasive narrative in which the arguments and the prose flow smoothly from one theme to another. The reader is pulled along various lines of argument running parallel, but ultimately these are brought back together in a concluding synthesis. This is a superb book. I know of no other recent volume with a similar broad scope, internal cohesion, and argumentative rigour, as well as persuasive writing style. I strongly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in global economic transformations and the expanded role of global city regions.' -- Larry S. Bourne, Canadian Studies in Population `This is vintage Allen Scott, but also a tour d'horizon of the state of urban studies, 2012, by one of its foremost global practitioners: compulsory reading.' -- Peter Hall, University College London, UK `In this book, Allen Scott enriches his longstanding research into the ways in which city-regions function as the main economic engines of global capitalism. The end result is a seminal synthesis of how city-regions are increasingly enchained with one another in intensifying relations of competition and cooperation, and is a must-read for students and scholars alike.' -- Ben Derudder, Monash University, Australia and Ghent University, Belgium `Scott's book is a remarkable treatment of the emerging global economy, weaving together the frontiers of technology and the ways in which labor is managed and surplus created with the cities of tomorrow. His book challenges conventional notions of the "global city" to provide a more nuanced account of the ways in which the emerging cultural-cognitive economy of the 21st century is producing urban landscapes. His conception of the city of tomorrow is informed by deep knowledge of the contemporary city around the world and provides the reader with the conceptual building blocks to re-frame how we think about urbanization now and in the future.' -- Gordon L. Clark, University of Oxford, UK

This innovative volume offers an in-depth analysis of the many ways in which new forms of capitalism in the 21st century are affecting and altering the processes of urbanization. Beginning with the recent history of capitalism and urbanization and moving into a thorough and complex discussion of the modern city, this book outlines the dynamics of what the author calls the third wave of urbanization, characterized by global capitalism's increasing turn to forms of production revolving around technology-intensive artifacts, financial services, and creative commodities such as film, music, and fashion. The author explores how this shift toward a cognitive and cultural economy has caused dramatic changes in the modern economic landscape in general and in the form and function of world cities in particular. Armed with cutting-edge research and decades of expertise, Allen J. Scott breaks new ground in identifying and explaining how the cities of the past are being reshaped into a complex system of global economic spaces marked by intense relationships of competition and cooperation. Professors and students in areas such as geography, urban planning, sociology, and economics will find much to admire in this pioneering volume, as will journalists, policy-makers, and other professionals with an interest in urban studies.