Urban and regional economic development in the age of globalization

Peter Taylor
Professor
Department of Geography
Loughborough University
United Kingdom
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/gy/staff/gypjt/index.html

City planning has traditionally been about place. Globalization has forced us to think about cities as place and flows. I explore this extension through presenting a materialist interpretation of cities as the generators of economic expansion. Cities are viewed as a spectacularly powerful process that encompasses four key dimensions: city-clusters; city-networks; city-regions; city-hinters. How does planning as a state activity relate to this process? Under conditions of contemporary globalization, planning has an enabling and facilitating role that supports places and networks to complement a geopolitics that assures supply.