The increased interest in how skills and knowledge are tied to regional development has placed universities in a prominent position. Many seek to emulate the successes of Silicon Valley or Boston by harnessing world class universities like Stanford or MIT to drive their economies. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan captured the historical legacy universities are seen to bestow by saying “If you want to build a great city, create a great university and wait 200 years.” Yet we know relatively little about how exactly universities have contributed to and been tied to the development of great cities over even the last 100 years. Indeed, many world class universities do not have large high-tech clusters nearby. The University of Chicago and Yale University are just two examples that counter Stanford created Silicon Valley narrative. Winling’s fresh and lively book is long overdue.

Economists think of universities in simple terms. They take inputs—students and initial research ideas—and produce outputs—graduates or discoveries. Universities can increase the productivity and growth of a regional economy through the production of knowledge and human capital. When human capital and knowledge produce spillovers local government subsidies of universities can be justified on efficiency grounds.

Winling’s perspective, however, is much broader. He seeks to understand how governments, philanthropists, the business community, and university leaders themselves have contributed to and benefited from universities in their communities. He painstaking draws from a broad set of case studies to understand what roles universities and their supporters have played in regional development from their founding until present day.

Chapter One tells the story of Muncie and the Ball Brothers role in the establishment of what is now Ball State. The story starts with George Ball’s purchase of a failing college in 1917 with no intention of reshaping the town. Shortly thereafter the campus was donated to the state to found a teachers college with backing from state appropriations. The expansion in scope from here on was very much a partnership between the Ball family, government, and university leaders.

Austin, Texas is the star in Chapter Two. Here we learn how the University of Texas was transformed in the 1930s. The lucky coincidence of oil revenues flowing to the state at a time when many other states struggled to embrace the local matching provision the New Deal public works programs presented an opportunity not to be squandered. University leaders were highly responsive to new opportunities. They pivoted towards industry sponsored research attracting many high-tech companies during WWII and through the Cold War. Winling tells how segregation both in the city and in the classroom was important for Austin from the 1950s to the present day.

In Chapter Three we follow the development of the University of Chicago and Hyde Park. Here the contrast between a growing world class university and a deteriorating local community looms large. Winling describes how the tinderbox of racial tensions came to a head in 1952 after an invasion into the house of scientist Samuel Uttermyer— two blocks from campus and two doors down from Enrico Fermi’s home—at a time the university was suffering a significant enrollment drop. In response the university chancellor created the South East Chicago Commission (SECC), a non-profit organization that became known as the urban renewal arm of the university. The moves to increase police enforcement and oppose public housing held profound racial implications, and led to significant changes in the relationship between Hyde Park and the university.

Next we turn to Berkeley in Chapter Four to understand the role of public higher education in urban changes. Many elements of this story—how mass education, for example, became a key part of the 1960s counter culture—have been told before. What is new is that Winling reveals the role of conflicting values leading to the politics of space. These manifest in the People’s Park—university-owned land claimed by community protesters as common public space.

Cambridge, Massachusetts is the last city studied. Here Winling tells the story of the town’s transition from declining manufacturing towards high tech in the post-WWII era. Kendall Square near MIT is a great example of a high-tech cluster near a world-class university. Economists typically think of these clusters as the result of decentralized decisions by venture founders, high tech workers, and real estate developers. In Cambridge however, a different picture emerges. After being rejected for NASA’s headquarters local leaders utilized substantial federal programs to build an attractive high-amenity neighborhood that would appeal to high-tech workers.

Moynihan would have loved to read Winling’s fascinating account of how universities and regional development have been closely tied from the Progressive Era to the present day. One quibble with the book is the lack of a unifying theme or way to think about how universities and cities codeveloped. We learn much about individual experiences and the roles different partners played in the city-university story. The reader is not left with an understanding of which factors matter more or less in general. This leaves the book with less to say for modern policy makers than I had hoped. This book is a fresh new perspective on an understudied topic that we can hope that future scholars can develop—and even quantify the importance of—these unifying themes.