The Rise and Decline of Urban Economies: Lessons from San Francisco and Los Angeles

A conversation with Michael Storper, one of the world's leading economic geographers, on the rise and fall of urban economies.

Michael Storper is Distinguished Professor of Regional and International Development and Director of Global Public Affairs at University of California Los Angeles Luskin School of Public Affairs. His most recent book Keys to the City: How Economics, Institutions, Social Interaction, and Politics Shape Development (Harvard U. Press, 2014), looks at why we should consider economic development issues within a regional context--at the level of the city-region--and why city economies develop unequally. Michael received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands in 2008. He was elected to the British Academy in 2012, and also received the Regional Studies Association's award for overall achievement, the Sir Peter Hall Award, in the House of Commons in 2012. In 2014 Michael was named one of the "World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds" by Thomson Reuters.