ABSTRACT
A set of economic, technological and social forces are currently operating to
profoundly influence the role and function of our urban system, interaction and
competition between individual cities, and the internal structure of our major
urban areas. The challenges of globalisation and neo-liberalism have significantly
affected our approach to urban management, this being accompanied by the ‘hol-
lowing out’ of the state apparatus and a shift from government to governance, a
reformatting of political capacities at both sub-and supra-national scales, and an
increasing preoccupation in strategic terms with our international competitiveness.
