Cities, Regions and Flows presents a theoretical framework for understanding the changing relationship between places and physical movement, and thoughtfully prepared case studies from five continents on how cities relate to value chains, and how they ensure accessibility and urban liveability in an increasingly contested policy environment. Moreover, the book discusses how urban policies attempt to solve related conflicts in terms of infrastructure provision, land use, local labour markets and environmental sustainability. The two subsystems that are of major interest here - urban regions on the one hand, and logistics management and physical distribution on the other - develop in quite distinct, and often contradictory, ways. Whereas urban regions face disintegration due to the expansion of the built environment and the spatio-temporal fragmentation of life-worlds and regional systems, the logistics system itself demands integration in order to keep flows moving and to reduce costs. Physical flows, networks and chains thus have a fundamental impact on urban restructuring.

Part I: Introduction 1. Reconciling Cities and Flows in Geography and Regional Studies Part II: Theoretical Concepts, Research Questions 2. Economic Structure, Technological Change and Location Theory: The Evolution of Models Explaining the Link Between Cities and Flows 3. The Integration of Virtual Flows into Material Movements within the Global Economy 4. Supply Chain Management, Logistics Changes and the Concept of Friction 5. Goods Movement and Metropolitan Inequality: Global Restructuring, Commodity Flows, and Metropolitan Development Part III: Empirical Cases 6. The Paris Region: Operating and Planning Freight at Multiple Scales in a European City 7. From Hinterland to Distribution Center: The Chicago Region's Shifting Gateway Function 8. Amazon Shipping, Commodity Flows and Urban Economic Development: The Case of Belém and Manaus 9. The Flight of Icarus? Incheon's Transformation From Port Gateway to Global City 10. From Time Definite to Time Critical? Challenges Facing Airfreight and Port Growth in Durban Part IV: Challenges For Policy and Planning 11. Contested Trade and Policy Responses in Southern California 12. Infrastructure and Environmental Policy on Regulating Road Vehicle Emissions: From Top-Down Policy Directives to the Local Level 13. Freight, Land and Local Economic Development Part V: Conclusion 14. Cities, Flows and Scale: Policy Responses to the Challenges of Integration and Disintegration

Peter V. Hall is Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Geography at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. Trained as a city and regional planner, his research examines the connections between shipping and logistics chains, transport sector employment and the development of port cities.

Markus Hesse is Professor of Urban Studies at the University of Luxembourg. He has an academic background in human geography and spatial planning and his research interests include urban and regional development; economic networks, mobilities and flows; metropolitan governance, policy and planning.