Note: Bold lettering indicates cities covered in this symposium.

The problem: not much, not very comparative Emile Durkheim's dictum that science begins with comparison underscores the value of systematically, analyzing a large number of cities across different national cultures. As Durkheim (1982) suggests, only by comparing and measuring relationships can we achieve greater certainty. There are other reasons why comparison enables scholars to clarify and better explain phenomena. First, because comparison more precisely shows how variables work differently in a variety of settings; second, because comparison affords us a better chance to understand how the discovery of anomalies within different social systems can be refined and ultimately enhance theoretical understanding; and third, because comparison provides contrast models that point up crucial distinctions within a given set of findings. 1 Notwithstanding Durkheim's counsel, urban research has not been very comparative. What often stands for comparative analysis is comprised of separate chapters on a limited number of cities capped by an attempt to draw some unifying themes. When large numbers of cities are used, these works usually turn out to be a compendium of monographs, rather than tightly integrated, systematic comparisons (Robson

The authors suggest how regime politics is influenced in systematic ways by particular kinds of bargaining environments. They describe a theoretical framework designed to examine the interplay of local democratic development, market environments, and intergovernmental networks on regime dynamics in eight cities in Western Europe and the United States since the 1970s. The authors explain how structural forces influence critical aspects of local regimes, particularly their governing coalitions, means of public-private coordination, and prevailing policy agendas on economic development.

This article argues that central cities and their surrounding regions are highly interdependent, and that neither suburbs nor central cities are self-sufficient. For example, suburban per capita income is linked to central city per capital income, and the price of peripheral "edge city" office space is linked to the price of office space in the central business district. Not only do many suburbanites earn their incomes in central cities, but the authors also find that the amounts of income generated in core cities continue to grow. Overall, strong statistical evidence shows that suburbs benefit when their core cities are viable (densely populated and prosperous) and that when cities include a greater proportion of their metropolitan populations, they tend to be more prosperous.

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