Paper from the PASCAL International Observatory Conference, "Making Knowledge Work: Building Sustainable Partnerships through Place Management, Social Capital and Lifelong Learning" October 2005, University of Stirling, Scotland Local and Regional Government has always faced challenges to its ability to exercise good governance in the face of rapid and uncompromising change. But rarely in its history has there been such a combination of requirements, obligations, mandates, exhortations, responsibilities, accountabilities, imperatives and transformations as in the present day, some of them contradictory and others bordering on the limits of possibility. The inexorable movement towards the creation of 'learning cities', 'learning regions' and 'learning communities' comprises both a part of the problem and major element of the solution, since it is only by inserting learning into every aspect of city and regional life that the capacity to cope with ever-increasing demand is engendered. By Norman Longworth