First published in 1989. Focusing on leisure and policy in West European cities, this interdisciplinary study is written by leading policy analysts and academics from six European Community states: Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The emergence of leisure as a significant area of public policy in both developed and developing economies has been recognised only relatively recently, and this book was the first to deal with urban leisure policy in a European context.

Common themes in this study include the use of tourism as a strategic tool for the economic regeneration of cities, leisure as a vehicle of community development and of social integration, and the role of leisure in the development of socialist municipal policy programmes. This book should be of interest to policy makers in local government, lecturers and students of development, tourism, economics, and urban studies.