The Wealth of Cities: Towards an Assets-based Development of Newly Urbanizing Regions

The argument in this paper is in four parts: First, the author suggests that we can no longer treat cities apart from the regions surrounding them with which they are intensively entwined. Second, the paper critically examines the current policy consensus that a city’s future rests chiefly on its exports, and that to achieve such exports, outside capital with its undisputed knowledge of global marketing and up-to-date technology must be invited in to generate the jobs and incomes that are needed. Third, the author considers an alternative policy that concentrates on the long-term endogenous development of seven clusters of regional assets that will generate what I consider to be the true wealth of cityregions. Fourth the paper concludes some comments on the role of government in promoting such a development.