ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the larger, globalizing cities of growth and resurgence. It examines the reasons behind and consequences of the movement of people and investment into a select range of big, dynamic cities. The book has hugely ambitious goals: to provide an understanding of recent changes in growing cities across the world; and to pull together diverse themes that are currently 'silo-ed' in disciplinary and thematic bunkers. One fruitful avenue of research was the identification of global urban networks. The book reveals the pervasive and multiple connections with the global space of flows of people, money, discourses, practices and ideas. Neoliberalism is a variety of ideas that coalesce around beliefs that deregulated markets and freer global trade will increase economic growth and raise living standards.
