Urban entrepreneurialism has also been strongly
coloured by a fierce struggle over the acquisition
of key control and command functions in
high finance, government, or information gathering
and processing (including the media).
Functions of this sort need particular and often
expensive infrastructural provision. Efficiency
and centrality within a worldwide communications
net is vital in sectors where personal interactions
of key decision makers is required. This
means heavy investments in transport and communications
(airports and teleports, for example)
and the provision of adequate office space
equipped with the necessary internal and external
linkages to minimise transactions times and
costs. Assembling the wide range of supportive
services, particularly those that can gather and
process information rapidly or allow quick consultation
with 'experts', calls for other kinds of
investments, while the specific skills required
by such activities put a premium on metropolitan
regions with certain kinds of educations
provision (business and law-schools, hightech
production sectors, media skills, and the like).
Inter-urban competition in this realm is very expensive
and peculiarly tough because this is an
area where agglomeration economies remain
supreme and the monopoly power of established
centres, like New York, Chicago, London