What, Then, for 21st-Century Places?

We draw together from Chapters 2–6 many of the factors that will push and pull activities and people to and from our cities over the next few decades. For the great World Cities, the future looks like continued employment growth overall, but reduced dependence on large floorplates and serried ranks of desks. Digitisation will bite ever deeper, and give greater flexibility to support home- and remote-workers, but the wider benefits of agglomeration and clustering will still work in favour of these cities. For other places, the challenges are even greater: ranging down from the other major conurbations to freestanding market towns, medium-sized former industrial towns, places in the hinterlands of the World Cities, and University Towns as a particular form of advanced service centre. All will need careful understanding of scale, location and interrelationships in creating effective public policy for cities and regions - with implications for developers, investors and policymakers alike.