Urban areas are now home to more than half the population of OECD countries. Megacities like Tokyo with more than 35 million people and Mexico with about 18.5 million, and large agglomerations such as Montreal, Helsinki, Madrid and Stockholm are often called "engines of national growth." They...

Urban areas represent an important part of the national economy and feature higher GDP per capita and productivity levels than their country’s average. But they also harbour large pockets of unemployment and poverty and suffer from problems such as congestion, pollution and crime. This book...