ABSTRACT
In the last half of the twentieth century, Chicago, like other industrial cities around the world, experienced significant amounts of industrial decentralisation and closure, as the long post-war boom ebbed. Interesting connections began to be made between traditional handcrafting and industrial techniques. New industries are taking hold in particular places, so that the early pioneering cities are very often those who succeed the most in economic development and wealth creation. Wealth creation flourishes where societies adopt capitalism and Western-style democracy. Indian cities such as Mumbai and Bangalore are enjoying unprecedented wealth creation, as they benefit from and in part lead the new wave of capitalist economic growth. Prague's wealth was based on mercantile capitalism and trade with Italian and German cities. The Soviet Union and its allies reacted with the invasion of Czechoslovakia and Prague. Czechoslovakia eventually achieved independence from Communism. There was very little violence and so the Czechs came to refer to theirs as the Velvet Revolution.
