Ricky Burdett is professor of Urban Studies at the London School of Economics (LSE), and director of LSE Cities. He curated the International Architecture Exhibition at the 2006 Venice Biennale, was architectural adviser to the mayor of London from 2001-06, and was chief adviser on architecture and urbanism for the London 2012 Olympics.

Philipp Rode is executive director of LSE Cities and an associate professorial research fellow at LSE.

An authoritative - and fascinating - investigation into the spatial and social dynamics of cities at a global scale

Shaping Cities in an Urban Age is the third addition to Phaidon's hugely successful Urban Age series, published in collaboration with the London School of Economics (LSE) and the Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft (AHG).

Generously illustrated with photographs, visual data, and statistics, and featuring a series of essays written by leading people in their fields, Shaping Cities in an Urban Age addresses our most urgent contemporary and future urban issues by examining a set of key forces that have combined to create the city as we know it today.

From the publisher of The Endless City and Living in the Endless City.