Alan Harding is Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Heseltine Institute for Public Policy and Practice at the University of Liverpool Management School in the UK. Previously, he held posts at Manchester, Salford and Liverpool John Moores universities. His research interests are in urban and regional development, governance and policy and he has acted as an advisor on these issues for a wide range of leading agencies with interests in this field.

1. WHAT IS URBAN THEORY?
Urban Studies and Urban Theory
What is Urban?
What is Theory?
And So What on Earth is Urban Theory?
2. URBAN THEORIES UNDER CONDITIONS OF MODERNITY
The Chicago School and Urban Ecology
Urban Geography and Spatial Analysis
The Community Power Debate
Humanistic (Urban) Geography
'Radical¿ Approaches
The Legacy of Previous Theories and Their Challenges
3. FROM THE URBAN CRISIS TO THE 'TRIUMPH OF THE CITY'
Cities as Actors in a Globalising Economy
Urban Decline and Obsolescence
Urban Economic Renaissance
Discussion
4. CAN CITIES ACT? URBAN POLITICAL ECONOMY AND THE QUESTION OF AGENCY
The Rediscovery of Agency Within Urban Theory
Introducing American Urban Political Economy
Urban Regimes and Growth Machines
The Normative Dimension
Critiques and Applications
5. SPATIAL EXPRESSIONS OF INTRA-URBAN INEQUALITIES
Inequalities Versus Differentiations: Vertical and Horizontal Paradigms
Cities as Sites of Resources: Space and Inequalities
Segregation
Suburbanization
Gentrification
Ghettoization as a Spatial Process of Marginalization
Neighbourhood Effects: Spatial Profit and Disadvantage
6. SPATIAL EXPRESSION OF DIFFERENTIATION
The Cultural Turn
The City as a Realm of Community and Lifestyle
The Subcultural Thesis
The Representational City: Public Space
Cultural Diversity: Identities in Public Space
Conclusion: Cities as Matrix of Resources
7. URBAN THEORY RECONSIDERED
The ¿Crisis¿ in Urban Theory Revisited
The Performance of Theories
The Commensurability of Theories
Theory, Politics and Practice
A New Urban Agenda?