Dr. Karina M. Pallagst is the director of the Shrinking Cities in a Global Perspective Program at UC Berkeley's Center for Global Metropolitan Studies (http://www-iurd.ced.berkeley.edu/scg/index.htm). Pallagst previously worked as Senior Researcher at the Institute of Ecological and Regional Development (IOER) Dresden/Germany and Program Coordinator at UC Berkeley's Institute of Urban and Regional Development (IURD). Dr. Pallagst's publications and research focus primarily on comparative urban and regional studies as well as land use planning theory and practice. Since 1998 Thorsten Wiechmann is Senior Researcher at the Leibniz Institute of Ecological and Regional Development based in Dresden, Germany, and lecturer at the Dresden University of Technology. He holds a Ph.D. in Geography and Urban Planning from the University of Bonn. Besides his interest in planning theory and evaluation methods he has done research in urban and regional governance, strategic spatial planning and regional innovation systems. Dr Martinez-Fernandez is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Western Sydney -- The Urban Research Centre which study the challenges of contemporary urbanisation, evaluating consequences and devising effective solutions. Martinez-Fernandez's research concentrates on industry and policy analysis, networks and innovation systems in the new urban economy.