Governing Cities on the Move : Functional and Management Perspectives on Transformations of European Urban Infrastructures

If European reality is essentially urban, what is the meaning of the urban notion today?

Which new changes have occurred in the urban structures during the last 15-20 years - that is after the intensive urbanization of the post-war period?

Which new ways of organizing urban space have developed?

Which changes have taken place in urban life? What are the new roles of cities in the economic globalization process?

How can cities manage both the economic competition and social cohesion?

What impacts do these changes have on have on the social structure?

Is there an increasing social and spatial fragmentation of cities?

What effects do these developments have on the managment of cities and urban policies?

How do these changes exacerbate the welfare and fiscal crises that affect the government of cities?

Which new forms of urban governance have appeared? Throughout this book many of these questions are answered or at least are attempted to be answered.

This work explores the transformation of European cities and their way of governing themselves.

The transformation is related to the question of urban infrastructure, giving particular attention to the transport and communication systems. Using many examples from European cities, this book focuses on the structuring roles of these urban infrastructures on the social, economic and ecological performance of the cities in the long term.

It underlines the fact that these infrastructures support strategies, both from a functional point of view - the question of urban accessibility - and from the perspective of managing and governing urban space.