What are the most favourable conditions for the generation of innovative ideas and forms of enterprise? Can they be stimulated by intervention policies? To what extent does the injection of new technology stimulate local economic development? Do Science Parks really work? It is increasingly important in a world of global competition to be able to provide answers to these questions. There is an urgent need for positive guidance to achieving the necessary economic and physical "reshaping" of our cities and regions. This volume provides a compact in-depth investigation of these issues, bringing...

Recent developments in the field of urban analysis and management are investigated in this book. It is a wide-ranging collection of essays on the subject drawn from a long-term project and seminar, held in Italy, to review the state of the art and speculate on the future influence on the "sciences of the city" of the complexity concept. Of particular interest is the variety of points of view, often contrasting, and the attempt to go beyond the conventional approaches to the analysis, and the planning of the city. While focussing mainly on the European (and in particular Italian) context, the...