World Cities and Local Government

Urban policy, preserved and searchable

Major cities are larger than some countries, and city governments are at the forefront of tackling urgent societal challenges — homelessness, urbanisation, climate change, income inequality, and transport. Yet local government publications are among the hardest policy documents to find and cite. They're rarely indexed and highly vulnerable to disappearing from the web.

World Cities and Local Governments finds, indexes, and preserves this critical output, creating standard metadata and assigning persistent identifiers to every item — so that these important documents remain findable, citable, and stable.

Broad relevance

City reports support research and teaching across the full breadth of urban studies, including race and religion, health, sustainability, gender, the arts, education, and more — making this a valuable resource for a wide range of academic programmes and research agendas.

Global and historical reach

The database covers cities of all sizes from every continent, with particular attention to the Global South, spanning Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Latin America. Coverage is both current and historical, reaching back to capture policy documents that provide essential context for understanding today's urban challenges.