The New Wealth of Cities City Dynamics and the Fifth Wave

Over the past two decades, city economies have restructured in response to the decline of older industries. This has involved new forms of planning and urban economic development, a return to traditional concerns of city building and a focus on urban design. During this period, there has also been a marked rise in our understanding of cultural development and its role in the design, economy and life of cities. In this book, John Montgomery argues that this amounts to a shift in urban development. He provides a long overdue look at the dynamics of the city, that is, how cities work in relation to the long cycles of economic development and suggests that a new wave of prosperity, built on new technologies and new industries, is just getting underway in the Western world. The New Wealth of Cities focuses on what effect this will have on cities and city regions and how they should react. Original and wide-ranging, this book will be a definitive resource on city economies and urban planning, explaining why it is that cities develop over time in periods of propulsive growth and bouts of decline.

Contents: Preface: an explanation; Theory: Two Inter-locking Theories of City Development: Introduction; A general model of city dynamics; The long waves of city development; City dynamics; Old money and new work. Economy: The New Economy and the Creative Industries: The economy of cities; Knowledge economies and post-Fordism; The cultural or creative industries; The rise of London's creative industries; Local economic development of the creative industries. Culture: Art and the City: Artistic creativity; Artistic movements; Cities and artistic creativity; The arts and urban regeneration; Artistic creativity and the long waves. Time: The Regulation of Public Morality: On Time: Public social life and the evening economy; Night-time cities; The problem of regulation; Public morality and the long waves; New regulation of the night-time city?. Place: The Art of Place-Making and Urban Design: Place matters; Losing the place; City building; Urban design; Place in the fifth wave. Creative Milieux: Quarters and Clusters: Creative milieux; Cultural quarters; Planned cultural quarters; A typology for developing cultural and creative industry quarters; Creative milieu in the fifth wave. Cities of the Fifth Wave: Summary argument; Fifth wave cities; City dynamics and place-making; Renaissance or enlightenment?; Index.

Academic and Professional Practice & Development

John Montgomery is an urban and city regional planner, specialising in the economy, culture and the design of cities. In 1995, John was awarded Royal Town Planning Institute prize for his work on a knowledge-based, environmentally sustainable industrial strategy for Hertfordshire.