Introduction: the competitiveness challenge for SecondaryCapital Cities

The political and symbolic centrality of capital cities has been contested by economic globalization. Secondary Capital Cities – defined as capitals that are not the primary economic city of their nation states – are especially pressured by economic globalization because their political economy is nationally oriented and shaped by the influence of the national government. Thus, Secondary Capital Cities are politically superior but economically inferior. These types of capital cities are nevertheless pushed into a globalized and increasingly knowledge-intense interurban competition. The competitiveness challenge sketched in this book is that Secondary Capital Cities must enter globalized interurban competition without possessing a competitive political economy. The book is guided by three research questions. First, what kinds of locational policies are being formulated in Secondary Capital Cities? Second, which factors explain the formulation of locational policies in Secondary Capital Cities? Third, which actors formulate locational policies in the urban governance arrangements of Secondary Capital Cities?