In both countries, France and Germany, there is great pressure to change and adapt towards new forms of urbanity and to conceive new strategic approaches with limited public finance and a need for economic efficiency. Not all types of urban areas are equally affected by these issues. The book aims to do justice to this situation, considering in both cases the context of the national urban systems. As it proved impossible to address all the topics relevant to the spatial development of urban and rural areas, the authors decided to concentrate on a number of important topical themes which are undoubtedly relevant in both countries, albeit in different ways, and which could be significant for a comparison. The focus is thus on issues related to metropolises, small and medium-sized towns and particularly current issues of urbanity, sustainability, Smart Cities, transport and mobility, and the role of cross-border urban development. The structure of the chapters is conceived in these terms. Besides scientific and theoretical approaches, the authors also consider the practical planning perspective and methodological aspects of the topic at hand. They mainly address three relevant factors: the differences between the two institutional systems, the development paths and historical constants, and how new challenges are addressed on both sides of the border.

Cities are not only home to around half of the global population but also major centers of economic activity and innovation. Yet, so far there has been no consensus of what a city really is. Substantial differences in the way cities, metropolitan, urban, and rural areas are defined across countries hinder robust international comparisons and an accurate monitoring of SDGs. The report Cities in the World: A New Perspective on Urbanisation addresses this void and provides new insights on urbanisation by applying for the first time two new definitions of human settlements to the entire globe: the Degree of Urbanisation and the Functional Urban Area.

These essays, from leading names in the field, weave together the parallels and differences between the past and present of civic art. Offering prospects for the first decades of the twenty-first century, the authors open up a broad international dialogue on civic art, which relates historical practice to the contemporary meaning of civic art and its application to community building within today’s multi-cultural modern cities. The volume brings together the rich perspectives on the thought, practice and influence of leading figures from the great era of civic art that began in the nineteenth century and blossomed in the early twentieth century as documented in the works of Werner Hegemann and his contemporaries and considered fundamental to contemporary practice.

Multi-Ethnic Metropolis is based on international comparative research on ethnic segre gation patterns and policy reactions at local and national level. The objective was to achieve a broader, European perspective. For the acquisition of the information on which this book is based, we relied heavily on our colleagues abroad and their network of relations, since a great deal of factual data and information on the policies pursued is usually not available in a freely accessible form and can only be obtained through persons who know their way around. Eventually, in formation was provided by about seventy people (data administrators, policymakers at local and state level, politicians, academic researchers, representatives of interest groups, etc. ). The names of all people that contributed to this study are mentioned in the list of persons who were interviewed. Without wishing to wrong all these people, we especially want to thank the key informants who acted as intermediaries for following contacts. In alphabetical order, these are the following persons: Dr. Lars-Erik Borgegard (Stockholm}, Prof. Chris Hamnett (London), Dr. Herve Vieil lard Baron (Paris}, Prof. dr. Chris Kesteloot (Brussels}, Prof. dr. Bob Murdie (Toronto}, Prof. Ceri Peach (London), Prof. Phil Rees (London and Manchester}, Prof Brian Rob son (Manchester) and Prof. GUnther Glebe (Dusseldorf and Frankfurt). Furthermore we owe thanks to Prof. Herman van der Wusten, who took care of the in terviews in 'Paris', which was an unruly case.

This book follows the evolution of the very large city across the world from its origins in Ancient times to its current dominant position in both the industrialised world and the Third World. In-depth studies are devoted to the key giant cities of human history at decisive points in their growth. The case-studies include Rome, London, Saint-Petersburg, Moscow, Bangkok and Berlin. Additional studies deal with the general characteristics of the megalopolis, stressing its implications for cultural life.

Can there be a flaneuse, and what form might she take? This is the central question of Streetwalking the Metropolis, an important contribution to ongoing debates on the city and modernity in which Deborah Parsons re-draws the gendered map of urban modernism. Assessing the cultural and literary history of the concept of the flaneur, the urban observer/writer traditionally gendered as masculine, the author advances critical space for the discussion of a female 'flaneuse', focused around a range of women writers from the 1880's to World War Two. Cutting across period boundaries, this wide-ranging study offers stimulating accounts of works by writers including Amy Levy, Dorothy Richardson, Virginia Woolf, Rosamund Lehmann, Jean Rhys, Janet Flanner, Djuna Barnes, Anais Nin, Elizabeth Bowen and Doris Lessing, highlighting women's changing relationship with the social and psychic spaces of the city, and drawing attention to the ways in which the perceptions and experiences of the street are translated into the dynamics of literary texts.

The crucial actors of a global knowledge-based economy are multinational enterprises (MNEs). MNEs depend on the embeddedness in an institutional framework; their competitive advantage depends on the cross-border utilisation of regional and national capabilities. The innovativeness of a company is therefore based also on regional innovation systems. Multinational Enterprises and Innovation contributes to a better understanding of the interconnectedness between organisational and regional learning. On the basis of case studies in Germany and France, this volume investigates how MNEs cope with technical, economic and institutional uncertainties by drawing upon the complementary strengths of organisational and regional networks in national and European contexts. The book links two theoretical debates which are currently still largely disconnected -- the debate on learning processes in MNEs and the debate on the regional bases of innovativeness and competitiveness -- answering the question of how the internationalisation of R&D is reconciled with regional competences.

Metropolis Berlin: 1880-1940 reconstitutes the built environment of Berlin during the period of its classical modernity using over two hundred contemporary texts, virtually all of which are published in English translation for the first time. They are from the pens of those who created Berlin as one of the world’s great cities and those who observed this process: architects, city planners, sociologists, political theorists, historians, cultural critics, novelists, essayists, and journalists. Divided into nineteen sections, each prefaced by an introductory essay, the account unfolds chronologically, with the particular structural concerns of the moment addressed in sequence—be they department stores in 1900, housing in the 1920s, or parade grounds in 1940. Metropolis Berlin: 1880-1940 not only details the construction of Berlin, but explores homes and workplaces, public spaces, circulation, commerce, and leisure in the German metropolis as seen through the eyes of all social classes, from the humblest inhabitants of the city slums, to the great visionaries of the modern city, and the demented dictator resolved to remodel Berlin as Germania.

The Jewish Metropolis: New York City from the 17th to the 21st Century covers the entire sweep of the history of the largest Jewish community of all time. It provides an introduction to many facets of that history, including the ways in which waves of immigration shaped New York’s Jewish community; Jewish cultural production in English, Yiddish, Ladino, and German; New York’s contribution to the development of American Judaism; Jewish interaction with other ethnic and religious groups; and Jewish participation in the politics and culture of the city as a whole. Each chapter is written by an expert in the field, and includes a bibliography for further reading. The Jewish Metropolis captures the diversity of the Jewish experience in New York.