Metropolitan areas concentrate the main share of population, production and consumption in OECD countries. They are likely to be one of the most important units for economic, social and environmental analysis as well as for the development of policy strategies. However, one of the main problems...

The increasing openness of economies and the phenomenon of globalization has led to know-how and innovation becoming the key factors for business in terms of competitiveness. Thus, the fact that the activities and services are increasingly innovative means that the construction of innovation is...

On the last decades, European countries have increased their focus on local production systems as a matter of industrial policy measures. Based on the works related to industrial districts of Becatini (1989), Brusco (1990), Ybarra (1991 and 1996) and Dei Ottati (1994), or the later contributions...

Agri-food districts and PDO (protected designation of origin), PGI (protected geographical indication) and TSG (traditional specialty guaranteed) products are peculiarities of the Italian social and economic system. In fact, industrial districts are an Italian typical form of industrialization,...

In this paper we compare the magnitude of local productivity advantages associated to two different spatial concentration patterns in Italy, i.e. urban areas (UA) and industrial districts (ID). UA typically display a huge concentration of population and host a wide range of economic activities,...

For decades the Italian system of planning has been strongly characterized by a regulatory approach and the question of cities' development had been taken into account within general land use plans. In the 1990s this approach has been considered a strong constraint on the regeneration of cities...

In recent years, several contributions have been focused on a new sort of productive systems that share some characteristics with Marshallian industrial districts. These contributions have analysed the competitiveness of these new areas and how have been promoted by policy makers. In this line,...

The place marketing concept is one of the popular concepts to analyze and promote countries, regions, cities and towns. The intensification of competition for investment, tourism and human resources among European cities and towns has increased the importance of being unique. Most of studies on...

When welfare is analysed in Sweden the analysis is usually made at the national level; when the analysis is not done on the national level, the local level is in focus to illuminate differences between municipalities. Studies on poverty are no exception. The regional level contains a lot of...

Since the early 90s of last century, the city is returned to the focus of European and national policies and new theories of urban development inspired by the theme of regeneration and the new centrality of the historical part of the city. In recent years interesting process of reconstruction...