Special Issue "Urban Economics, City Development and Future Social Challenges"

Future forecasts about urban development are characterized by a high degree of uncertainty, depending on a future based on social fragmentation, real estate market segmentation, and increasing differentiation of demand for services and facilities. The demand for urban democracy and social justice is often based on the development of a new shared urban economy. The concept of an enlarged public urban development, at the same time, affects the quality of urban environments. As consequence, in the current era, studies of urban economics address the attention towards the multiplicity of factors that determine the welfare of cities, neighbors, and peripheries. Finally, we should not forget that urban economy values are related not only to physical facilities and services, but also to the answer to unmaterial needs that need a place in the City of the New Era. As consequence, scholars in urban disciplines are often called to depict multiple views of the future economy of cities. Researchers and scholars are invited to identify and describe those factors that will represent the future driver of economy in the evolving urban environment. Colleagues are invited to submit papers that will show, hopefully, new approaches referring (though not exclusively) to the following topics: evolutionary studies on urban development, comparative analyses of urban experiences, descriptive/quantitative/qualitative modeling for real estate studies, and studies on the influence of demographic, ethnic, and social phenomena in the economy of cities of the beginning third millennium