Creative industries have become fundamental in signalling the economic wellbeing of cities and urban regions. Workers who are attracted to the sector tend to have strong preferences when it comes to the neighbourhoods they want to live in, with factors such as job availability and urban amenities playing a large part in their decision. Skills and Cities analyses these factors and looks at the implications for urban and regional policy across a range of European cities. Drawing conclusions from the Netherlands and Scandinavian cities Copenhagen and Helsinki, this book sheds new light on the debate about the importance of jobs and urban amenities for attracting high-skilled employees. This edited collection brings together international literature and individual residential experiences from different cities, presenting policy simulations and highlighting the differences between urban and suburban groups. Subsequent chapters discuss the location preference and settlement process of international migrants and students in an attempt to understand what it is that attracts highly-skilled workers to a particular area. This book concludes by expertly drawing together the key issues surrounding the residential behaviour of highly educated workers and students. This collection will be of interest to researchers and policy makers in urban planning, as well as Postgraduate students researching housing preferences.

This groundbreaking research volume addresses the topic of educational inequality from a global perspective. It includes 16 chapters from an international group of scholars who examine how well city school systems from around the world are preparing young people, particularly poor and minority students, with the skills they will need for further study, work, and life overall. While skills in key domains such as science, math, language, and civics have been center stage in international comparisons, there has been growing recognition of the effects that education has on the development of broader sets of capabilities such as social and emotional skills (also known as “noncognitive” or “21st-century” skills) that can affect the success of students in school and beyond. This volume aims to address the shortage of international data on the wide range of skills that students need to learn, enabling researchers to compare the types and causes of educational inequality in skills within and between cities.

This book provides insights on skills required to achieve success in smart cities from a variety of industry and human factors perspectives. It emphasizes the balance between learning skills, technical skills, and domain-specific skills in these industries, with special emphasis given to innovative software development models. The authors note that digital transformation requires complementary measures that are not overtly aimed to support infrastructure investment but are instead directed at promoting entrepreneurship, improving digital skills, engaging citizens, applying new transformation strategies, and developing innovative software. All of the above are considered strategically important, especially for medium-sized cities since that enable them to be more competitive in the global economy.

There is a strong connection between per worker productivity and metropolitan area population, which is commonly interpreted as evidence for the existence of agglomeration economies. This correlation is particularly strong in cities with higher levels of skill and virtually non-existent in less skilled metropolitan areas. This fact is particularly compatible with the view that urban density is important because proximity spreads knowledge, which either makes workers more skilled or entrepreneurs more productive. Bigger cities certainly attract more skilled workers, and there is some evidence suggesting that human capital accumulates more quickly in urban areas.

There is a strong connection between per worker productivity and metropolitan area population, which is commonly interpreted as evidence for the existence of agglomeration economies. This correlation is particularly strong in cities with higher levels of skill and virtually non-existent in less skilled metropolitan areas. This fact is particularly compatible with the view that urban density is important because proximity spreads knowledge, which either makes workers more skilled or entrepreneurs more productive. Bigger cities certainly attract more skilled workers, and there is some evidence suggesting that human capital accumulates more quickly in urban areas.