The mayor of Birmingham in Alabama, William A Bell, tells Courtney Fingar how the renovation of an old railway yard into a baseball stadium is just one example of how the city is transforming its image and attracting the attention of both domestic and international investors.

Beyond the US megacities, several second-tier cities – Seattle, Columbus, San Antonio, Minneapolis/St Paul, San Diego and Portland – are in search of FDI to promote their positions on the world stage. Karen E Thuermer discovers how a major new investment initiative could help them find it.

At the turn of the millennium, after years of losing out on technology projects to established tech hubs, Chicago decided it was time to raise its game. Now its honour roll of successful start-ups includes Groupon and GrubHub.

As a family-owned company that has been producing paper for almost 100 years, Burrows Paper Corporation may have its roots in the past, but its sights are firmly fixed on the future, as it looks to emerging markets in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Regional bilateral free-trade agreements have emerged as a mechanism for boosting crossborder trade and investment in recent years, but none has been as ambitious as the two mega-regional deals currently being negotiated.