The Role of GIS in City Competitiveness

Virtually every city and region is engaged in activities to improve their relative global competitiveness. The Geographic Information System (GIS) is one of the powerful tools of information storage and information access, providing spatial data to different stakeholders and cities across the world. This chapter will highlight the role of GIS technology in empirical assessment of the competition among cities or regions, using a variety of data assembled by many different individuals, businesses, and institutions. This valuable information can be used in decision-making by stakeholders who are taking part in the competition and can be disseminated, accessed, and updated in a dynamic way. This chapter discusses the origins of urban competitiveness, dynamics and functions of competition, and current and future research possibilities made possible by GIS.