Costas Spirou

Costas Spirou’s research focuses on urban governance, technology and entrepreneurship, higher education and economic development, public policy and mayoral leadership. He has also examined downtown revival, stadium politics, and urban tourism. Spirou's most recent books include Anchoring Innovation Districts: The Entrepreneurial University and Urban Change (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021) which focuses on innovation, higher education, economic development, and urban revitalization and the co-edited The Many Futures of Work: Rethinking Expectations and Breaking Molds (Temple University Press, 2021) that examines the technological, political, and economic sources of the gig economy, the impact of the rapidly changing labor economy, and ameliorative policy options. He is editor of the Johns Hopkins University Press Higher Education and the City book series.

Previous books include Building the City of Spectacle: Mayor Richard M. Daley and the Remaking of Chicago (with D. Judd) published by Cornell University Press in 2016, Urban Tourism and Urban Change: Cities in a Global Economy (Routledge, 2011), and It's Hardly Sportin': Stadiums, Neighborhoods and the New Chicago (Northern Illinois University Press, 2003, with L. Bennett).

Previously he served as interim Chief Academic Officer for the University System of Georgia, overseeing academic operations for approximately 365,000 students. Before that, he was provost at Georgia College & State University, the state's designated public liberal arts university.  Spirou's activities have received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Spencer Foundation, the Library of Congress, the Ford Foundation and the Sam Walton Foundation. He has worked on projects with the University of Athens, Hassan II University Morocco, the University of Heidelberg and Peking University.