Jefferey M Sellers is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy, Planning and Development at the University of Southern California. The author of Governing From Below: Urban Regions in the Global Economy (Cambridge University Press, 2002) and editor of Metropolitanization and Political Change(VS Verlag, 2005) as well as numerous articles and book chapters, he is co-founder and co-director of the International Metropolitan Observatory Project. Daniel Kübler is Professor of Political Science at the University of Zurich and co-director of the International Metropolitan Observatory Project. He has co-edited Metropolitan governance: capacity, democracy and the dynamics of place (Routledge, 2005) and authored numerous articles and book chapters related to metropolitan governance, urban democracy and public policy analysis. Alan Walks is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Toronto. He is the author of a number of scholarly articles and book chapters related to electoral geography, urban inequality, and the relationship between suburbanisation and ideology. Melanie Walter-Rogg is Professor of Political Science at the University of Regensburg. She is author of a number of scholarly articles and book chapters related to metropolitan governance and urban democracy as well as political culture and behaviour.