Anne Power is Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a visiting senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. She is the author of City survivors (The Policy Press, 2007).Jörg Plöger completed his PhD at the University of Kiel, Germany, in 2006 and worked on the Weak Market Cities programme at LSE from 2006-09. He is now at the Research Institute for Regional and Urban Development in Dortmund, Germany.Astrid Winkler obtained an MSc in social psychology at LSE and worked on the CASE Neighbourhood Study before helping Anne Power to set up the Weak Market Cities programme.

• Part one: The tale of seven cities: Introduction: what are weak market cities?; Industrial giants: emerging on the back of history; A change in direction: political turmoil and a ferment of new ideas; Neighbourhood interventions: can small scale make a difference in big cities?; Part two: Learning from 50 years of boom and bust: seven European case studies: Introduction; Leipzig; Bremen; Sheffield; Belfast; Bilbao; Torino; Saint-Étienne; Part three: Are weak market cities recovering or struggling?: Towards a recovery framework; Part four: What can European cities learn from the American experience of urban industrial decline and post-industrial recovery initiatives?: How do American weak market cities compare with Europe?; Will American cities recover?; What are the lessons for Europe?; Part five: Conclusions: What do European cities teach us?; where does the future lie?

"...this work is a scholarly and accessible exploration of the rise and fall of industrial cities, and provides useful hints on the history and future of recovery." Neil McInroy in New Start Magazine