Urban Empires

Edward Glaeser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. He regularly teaches microeconomics theory, and occasionally urban and public economics. He has served as Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, and Director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston.Karima Kourtit is at the Open University, Heerlen, The Netherlands. Her main scientific research is in the field of creative industries, urban vitality and development, ethnic business, citizen involvement, cultural heritage, tourism, digital technology, and strategic key performance indicators (KPIs) for cities. In this context, she also became involved in research on urban dashboards, social media ('big data') research and resilience analysis.Peter Nijkamp is Emeritus Professor in regional and urban economics and in economic geography at the VU University, and associated with the Open University (OU), Heerlen (The Netherlands). He is member of editorial/advisory boards of more than 30 journals and a fellow of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. In 1996, he was awarded the most prestigious scientific prize in the Netherlands, the Spinoza award. He is also Vice-President of The Regional Science Academy (TRSA).