2nd ERSA-REGIO Academic Lecture 2018
23 April 2018, DG REGIO premises, Brussels, Belgium

Speaker: Prof. Henri de Groot, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands

The role of EU cities for regional development: Opportunities and challenges

Abstract: Cities have been major drivers of the aggregate economic growth in the past decades. The Information and Communication Technology Revolution has brought a long period of suburbanization to a halt and since the 1980s cities are in vogue again. In his lecture, Henri de Groot will discuss the crucial role that cities have played in the past decades and also discuss the associated consequences for interpersonal and spatial inequalities and the sorting of people. Specific attention will be devoted to lessons that can be learned from carefully analyzing wages and land rents as measurement tools in the evaluation of local investments and spatial planning policies. Although the empirical evidence is based on unique microdata for the case of the Netherlands, the dynamics are characteristic for most countries throughout Europe. The observed dynamics give rise to fundamental policy questions regarding the trade-off between spatial and interpersonal equity on the one hand and efficiency on the other hand. As such, they are the basis for a careful reconsideration of the goals of European Cohesion Policy for the next decades.

Discussant: Prof. Céline Rozenblat, University of Lausanne, Switzerland

When and where: 23 April 2018, 15:00-17:00; DG REGIO, VIP ROOM, Avenue de Beaulieu 1, Brussels.

Registration is free but mandatory.  To obtain the registration link, please send an email to office@ersa.org

See past Lectures’ videos on 
ERSA YouTube Channel “Lectures”  or visit Inforegio website