Since the early 1980's, urban sociologists, geographers, planners, and political economists have debated whether global forces, national policy, or local context has been the primary factor driving socio-economic and spatial outcomes in the world's largest city-regions. This debate has been noteworthy as such studies have greatly influenced public and private sector perceptions of cities and metropolitan regions, and forces that impact them. This, in turn, has affected the public policy decisions made by officials seeking to address the complex issues and problems confronting urban areas. The World's Major Cities facilitates this process of creating a more comprehensive and practical understanding of global city-regions. It provides students with a series of case studies, (edited and original essays), organized and presented around the three dominant perspectives in world cities research. The hybrid reader/manuscript format offers students and instructors a tool kit which they can utilize to examine the global cases studies within the volume, and others.