Arguably we have entered the Urban Age: more than 50% of the world’s population currently lives in cities. This poses unique challenges for the management and organization of cities, including cultural and social development, environmental issues, sustainability, economic challenges and increased pressure on ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ urban infrastructure.

The discourse of strategy has been embraced as mechanism to make sense of, and solve, these challenges: cities engage strategy consultants, they write extensive strategy documents, they run strategy workshops, and they use strategic processes to engage their communities. Most cities have strategy departments; they develop strategic visions of the future; they engage in strategic partnerships; they conduct themselves strategically; and they send their senior staff to enrol in prestigious MBA programs. The various visioning projects, including the strategies written for New York, Paris, London, Tokyo, Vienna, Copenhagen, Sydney (Sydney 2030) and other global cities, give testimony of this new way of imagining the future. In short, strategy is the watchword in the corridors of town halls, council administrations, and urban planning offices.

This observation marks the point of departure for the talk which will explore how strategy shapes social and spatial organization of cities.

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