The new productive city base draws from the emergence of new sectors that are more digital, service oriented, low carbon, knowledge-based and connected to their cultural-industrial context. These are revealing new opportunities for the re-integration of production into cities and urban areas, based on the design of new attractive multifunctional spaces and mixed-use neighbourhoods, where people can live, work and recreate. These manufacturing spaces are fully integrated, rather than rejected by cities and urban areas that need their support to grow and work on an everyday basis.

The New Leipzig Charter stresses the need to think about cities simultaneously at different scales and stresses the role of a renewed “active and strategic land policy and land use planning” and “actively shaping digital transformation”.

This book aims at providing an important contribution to enabling the New Leipzig Charter by providing an interpretation of the “productive city”, including fresh research showing the link between the city and productive activities; a new awareness of the role of the public sector; and, in particular, a synopsis of innovative approaches for policy-makers and spatial planning.