Around the world, metropolitan areas are emerging as the predominant form of human settlement. Processes like suburbanization, geopolitical fragmentation and metropolitan segregation, once thought to be confined to exceptions like the United States, have become facts of political and social life throughout advanced industrial countries. These global transformations are also contributing to major shifts in political orientations, electoral participation and governance. This book presents the first systematic comparative analysis of these social, spatial and political shifts. Employing a common analytical and methodological framework, the fifteen contributors examine variants of these changes underway in throughout North America, Eastern and Western Europe, and beyond.

Professor Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot is Directeur de Recherche at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Head of the CERVL at the Institute of Political Studies in Bordeaux.
Professor Jefferey Sellers is Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.