This book makes an important contribution to the discussion of the contemporary leadership challenges in the context of sustainable place shaping.

This collection first appeared as a special issue of Policy Studies and is now published by kind permission in the Regional Studies Association book series, Regions and Cities.

Chris Collinge is a Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of Birmingham. He has research interests in regional and local economic change, particularly the emergence of 'knowledge economies' in various forms, and is currently researching the development of economic knowledge across European regions.

John Gibney is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, University of Birmingham. He researches comparative European urban and regional development and is working on a number of leadership projects for government bodies across economic development, planning and regeneration.

Chris Mabey is Professor in Human Resource Management and directs the DBA in the Business School. He is Director of the Centre for Leadership at the University of Birmingham (CLUB) and researches, advises on and runs leadership development for organisations of various sizes in diverse sectors.

Foreword: Placing leadership Keith Grint

1. Introduction: Leadership and place Chris Collinge, John Gibney and Chris Mabey

2. Connecting place, policy and leadership Chris Collinge and John Gibney

3. Leadership challenges in the inner city: planning for sustainable regeneration in Birmingham and Barcelona Austin Barber and Montserrat Pareja Eastaway

4. Neighbourhood regeneration and place leadership: lessons from Groningen and Birmingham David Mullins and Gerard van Bortel

5. Leadership of 'subregional' places in the context of growth Lisa Trickett and Peter Lee

6. Leadership of cluster policy: lessons from the Austrian province of Styria Stewart MacNeill and Michael Steiner

7. Place-renewing leadership: trajectories of change for mature manufacturing regions in Europe David Bailey, Marco Bellandi, Annalisa Caloffi and Lisa De Propris

8. Place-making and the limitations of spatial leadership: reflections on the Øresund Chris Collinge and John Gibney

9. Leadership of place in the rural periphery: lessons from Australia's agricultural margins Michael Kroehn, Alaric Maude and Andrew Beer

10. Reflections on leadership and place Chris Mabey and Tim Freeman