Books in the Routledge Advances in Regional Economics, Science and Policy series

This book explores the dynamics of place, location and territories from the perspective of an experience-based economy. It offers a valuable contribution to this new approach and provides insight into the unique planning and management challenges it faces.

The onset of the global crisis has emphasised the persistence of substantial differences in development and social progress within the euro area. The specific case of countries located in the southern periphery region has come to the centre stage, due to the harsh economic conditions that all these countries have experienced in the recent past.

This book aims to link quality of life to related issues such as sustainability, equity, and subjective well-being. In the last few decades, urban quality of life has received increasing interest from policy makers who aim to make cities better places to live. In addition to the aim of improving quality of life, sustainable and equitable development is also often included in the policy agendas of decision makers.

By drawing on fresh original research by a new generation of urban researchers located in research institutions across the global South and North, this book addresses old debates in new ways and raises new questions about sustainable urban development. It will be of interest to researchers, city managers and a wide range of policy actors in government, civil society and the private sector.

Broadband is one of the most transformative technologies of the 21st century, yet our understanding of its regional impacts remains somewhat rudimentary. Not only are issues of broadband pricing and speed relevant in this context, but the overall quality of service for broadband can often dictate its impacts on regional development. This book illuminates the regional impacts of this pervasive and important technology.

Tourism has become one of the largest and fastest growing sectors in the world economy. Increasingly, research on tourism destinations has been at the centre of debates concerning destination competitiveness, governance, policies and destination management and marketing. This book investigates tourist destinations from two key perspectives and will appeal to academics, scholars and practitioners in tourism studies, management, urban and regional studies and economic geography, etc.

In Australia, regions are not just geographic locations, they are also cultural ideas. Being regional means being located outside the nation''s capital cities and in the periphery of its centres of power and influence. Regional development in Australia is thus significantly different than its European or American counterparts. However, surprisingly little has been written about the unique dynamics of development in Australia''s regions; this book has been written to fill this gap. In recent decades the Australian government has made repeated policy efforts to achieve sustainable development in its non-metropolitan areas. Over the same period, those who live and work outside the nation''s capital cities have come to identify as regional Australians. This book takes an anthropological approach to understanding the particularities of regional development in Australia. It draws upon rich, on-the-ground observations of towns, industries, universities, development organisations, and communities across different settings to provide an in-depth understanding of the subject. This book will be of interest to researchers and practitioners concerned with regional development and policy.

Research interest in the service sector has boomed in recent years as deindustrialisation became entrenched. Instead of being regarded as merely supplementary to traditional industry and manufacturing, services have generated progressively rising levels of growth in developed economies while at the same time coming to be recognised as major drivers of innovation. Knowledge Intensive Business Services and Regional Competitiveness charts the the rise of these influential actors and their influence on regional competitiveness.

Applied Spatial Modelling and Planning shows how much geographical research is policy relevant to a wide variety of agencies through the use of GIS and spatial modelling in applied geography. It shows how these techniques have been used to address `real world¿ issues that are of concern to international organisations, public agencies and businesses as illustrated by actual funded projects that geographers have developed collaboratively with end-users.

All over the world societies are facing a number of major problems. New developments, challenges and opportunities cause these issues and yet cases tell us that traditional spatial planning responses and tools are often insufficient to tackle these problems and challenges.This book draws together examples from across the globe ¿ from France to Australia; from Nigeria to the United States, as it observes international comparisons of the strategic planning process.