ABSTRACT
An ongoing global process of urbanisation has led to an increased focus on cities as the drivers of economic growth and on a reshaping of how modern economies are organised. This belief is reinforced in a number of ways. For example, in 2009 the World Bank in its flagship annual report on global development embraced the ideas of the New Economic Geography and showed that large global cities were the dominant location for economic activity when measured by GDP per square kilometre (World Bank, 2008). Similarly, the OECD has produced a number of studies showing that large urban regions account for the majority of economic growth in its member countries (OECD, 2012, 2015). And urban-focused thinktanks, such as the Brookings Institute and McKinsey in the USA, and METREX in Europe, as well as numerous academic studies, all reinforce this sense that the modern economy is an urban economy.
