Cities attract people of different talents and skills. Its streets and buildings form competitive cauldrons where these differences are refined into specialization. Specializations combine into industries that produce a sum greater than the individual parts. Those sums are then sold elsewhere to create wealth. 

Cities, then, are the deep sea vent of economies: the place where elements collide to create new forms of life. That makes them vital for any national strategy of growth. In fact, such a strategy should piece together how the cities within a country’s borders can complement each other as they compete.

Prague, today, has a challenge. For centuries, the city has been a primary generator of Czech economic growth. Now, due to the circumstances of history, the city could become stranded in a no-man’s land between macro-regions centered around Berlin, Munich or Vienna. City planners, and national strategists, must be alert to this possibility, and seek to counter the pull of these great European cities.

Read a full version of the report in Czech and English below.