Jennifer Clark
Jennifer Clark is Professor and Head of the City and Regional Planning Section at the Knowlton School of Architecture in the College of Engineering at The Ohio State University. She specializes in urban and regional economic development planning. Dr. Clark's most recent book is Uneven Innovation: The Work of Smart Cities (Columbia University Press, 2020).
Dr. Clark is the author of Working Regions: Reconnecting Innovation and Production in the Knowledge Economy (Routledge, 2013) and co-author of Remaking Regional Economies: Power, Labor, and Firm Strategies in the Knowledge Economy (Routledge, 2007) and the 3rd edition of Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning (Routledge, 2012), a widely adopted text in urban planning and policy courses. She is co-editor of the Handbook of Manufacturing Industries in the World Economy (Edward Elgar, 2015) and Transitions in Regional Economic Development (Routledge, 2018). In addition, she has written numerous articles and book chapters.
Dr. Clark is a Fellow of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) and a Fellow of the Regional Studies Association (RSA). She is also the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the journal Regional Studies. She earned her Ph.D. from Cornell University, a Master’s degree from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, and a B.A. from Wesleyan University in Connecticut.
Dr. Clark teaches courses on urban and regional economic development theory, analysis, and practice and research design and methods. She has provided expert testimony before the US Congress and policy advice and consulting to the OECD, the Canadian, UK, and US governments. Before joining the Knowlton School, Dr. Clark taught at Cornell University and the Georgia Institute of Technology where she was also the Director of the Center for Urban Innovation.
Dr. Clark is the author of Working Regions: Reconnecting Innovation and Production in the Knowledge Economy (Routledge, 2013) and co-author of Remaking Regional Economies: Power, Labor, and Firm Strategies in the Knowledge Economy (Routledge, 2007) and the 3rd edition of Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning (Routledge, 2012), a widely adopted text in urban planning and policy courses. She is co-editor of the Handbook of Manufacturing Industries in the World Economy (Edward Elgar, 2015) and Transitions in Regional Economic Development (Routledge, 2018). In addition, she has written numerous articles and book chapters.
Dr. Clark is a Fellow of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) and a Fellow of the Regional Studies Association (RSA). She is also the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the journal Regional Studies. She earned her Ph.D. from Cornell University, a Master’s degree from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, and a B.A. from Wesleyan University in Connecticut.
Dr. Clark teaches courses on urban and regional economic development theory, analysis, and practice and research design and methods. She has provided expert testimony before the US Congress and policy advice and consulting to the OECD, the Canadian, UK, and US governments. Before joining the Knowlton School, Dr. Clark taught at Cornell University and the Georgia Institute of Technology where she was also the Director of the Center for Urban Innovation.
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Books by Jennifer Clark
In Uneven Innovation, Jennifer Clark considers the potential of these emerging technologies as well as their capacity to exacerbate existing inequalities and even produce new ones. She reframes the smart city concept within the trajectory of uneven development of cities and regions, as well as the long history of technocratic solutions to urban policy challenges. Clark argues that urban change driven by the technology sector is following the patterns that have previously led to imbalanced access, opportunities, and outcomes. The tech sector needs the city, yet it exploits and maintains unequal arrangements, embedding labor flexibility and precarity in the built environment. Technology development, Uneven Innovation contends, is the easy part; understanding the city and its governance, regulation, access, participation, and representation—all of which are complex and highly localized—is the real challenge. Clark’s critique leads to policy prescriptions that present a path toward an alternative future in which smart cities result in more equitable communities.
Table or Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
1. Uneven Innovation: The Evolution of the Urban Technology Project
2. Smart Cities as Solutions
3. Smart Cities as Emerging Markets
4. Smart Cities as the New Urban Entrepreneurship
5. Smart Cities as Urban Innovation Networks
6. Smart Cities as Participatory Planning
7. Smart Cities as the New Uneven Development
8. Conclusions: The Local Is (Not) the Enemy
Epilogue: The View from Inside the Urban Innovation Project
Notes
Bibliography
Index
This book traces several key themes underlying the core proposition that for a region to work, it has to link research and manufacturing activities — namely, innovation and production — in the same place. Among the topics discussed in this volume are the issues of how the location of research and development infrastructure produces a clear role of the state in innovation and production systems, and how policy emphasis on pre-production processes in the 1990s has obscured the financialization of intellectual property. Throughout the book, the author draws on examples from diverse industries, including the medical devices industry and the US photonics industry, in order to illustrate the different themes of working regions and the various institutional models operating in various countries and regions.
Table of Contents
1. Working Regions: Regeneration by design
2. The Spatial Distribution of Advanced Manufacturing
3. The Rise of the Research Center: The nexus between national innovation policies and regional development
4. The Trade in Innovation: The evolution of intellectual property markets
5. Hidden in Plain Sight: The North American optics and photonics industry
6. Working Regions in Practice: Apparel and outdoor equipment and medical devices industries
7. Flexible Specialization 2.0: The design + build approach to working regions
Published Reviews
"Given the power and timeliness of these arguments, this volume deserves a multi-disciplinary and multi-level academic, as well as an extensive policy-making, readership." -- Professor Neil Coe, University of Manchester, UK (reviewed in the Journal of Economic Geography)
"Christopherson and Clark's book is a wake-up call. It does not provide all the answers, and neither should it. It is a call for new thinking - well crafted and provocative and well supported by empirical research. It has the potential to be a turning point in new regionalist thinking and urgently needed policy development." -- Professor Michael Taylor, University of Birmingham, UK (reviewed in Regional Studies)
"Christopherson and Clark credit several planners and geographers for introducing the principles of distributive regionalism, but in this book, they provide a new conceptual basis for it-their answers to the questions of actors, agency, and power." -- Professor James Harrington, Department of Geography, University of Washington, USA (reviewed in Economic Geography)
"…the empirical detail and breadth of discussion is nuanced, convincing, and worth reading. The underlying message is that SMEs compete with their larger counter parts in terms of access to critical factor markets and inputs." -- Professor Alan MacPherson, Department of Geography, University at Buffalo - The State University of New York, USA (published in Growth and Change)
"These empirical studies are based on a rich and wide literature on the global economy and the region: which makes it easy to agree that the book is both interesting and insightful for a range of students and researchers of the social science disciplines. ...Certainly, it is of value for buying and reading!" -- Katariina Ala-Rämi, Department of Geography, University of Oulu. (published in Economic Geography Research Group Book Reviews)
Abstract
Since the early 1980s, the region has been central to thinking about the emerging character of the global economy. In fields as diverse as business management, industrial relations, economic geography, sociology, and planning, the regional scale has emerged as an organizing concept for interpretations of economic change.
This book is both a critique of the "new regionalism" and a return to the "regional question," including all of its concerns with equity and uneven development. It will challenge researchers and students to consider the region as a central scale of action in the global economy, and at the core of the book are case studies of two industries that rely on skilled, innovative, and flexible workers - the optics and imaging industry and the film and television industry. Combined with this is a discussion of the regions that constitute their production centers. The authors’ intensive research on photonics and entertainment media firms, both large and small, leads them to question some basic assumptions behind the new regionalism and to develop an alternative framework for understanding regional economic development policy. Finally, there is a re-examination of what the regional question means for the concept of the learning region.
This book draws on the rich contemporary literature on the region but also addresses theoretical questions that preceded "the new regionalism." It contributes to teaching and research in a range of social science disciplines and this new paperback edition will also make the book more accessible to students and researchers in those disciplines, those individuals who will influence the re-structuring economies of the 21st century.
– Professor Frank Giarratani, Center for Industry Studies, University of Pittsburgh, US
‘This book represents a major contribution to our thinking about modern manufacturing industries and is not just timely it is long overdue! The authors have done an outstanding job in bringing to bear a range of multi-disciplinary perspectives on a domain which all too often suffers from rather narrow disciplinary analyses. Ranging from engineering to social science and drawing on examples from the US, Europe and Asia, the book provides not only a wealth of fact and illustration but a rich landscape to inform those charged with industrial policy and manufacturing strategies.’
– From the foreword by Sir Mike Gregory, University of Cambridge, UK
The Handbook of Manufacturing Industries in the World Economy
The Handbook of Manufacturing Industries in the World Economy provides a critical and multi-disciplinary state-of-the-art review and analysis of current manufacturing processes, practices and policies. Expanding our knowledge and understanding of production and innovation, this collection demonstrates that manufacturing continues to matter in the world economy.
The contributors, including scholars ranging from engineering to policy to economic geography, cover manufacturing policy and the revival of the industrial base in the US, UK and Canada and engage national and regional strategies for implementing advanced manufacturing policies. Questions of economic resilience in the wake of the recent recession are asked, and industry and firm case studies are utilised in an international comparative context. Applying a wide range of international cases from the US, EU, Australia and Asia, this approach allows readers to view transformations in production systems and processes across sectors, technologies and industries.
Students, scholars and policymakers in the fields of public policy, economic geography, city and regional planning, and business and management will find this collection invaluable in understanding how firms and industries adapt, through dynamic and design-driven strategies, to produce for established and emerging markets.
Contents:
PART I: INTRODUCTION
PART II:(PROCESSES) BUILDING BLOCKS: FACTOR INPUTS AND PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION
1. Manufacturing Management in Theory and Practice
Paul L Forrester
2. Manufacturing and Labor
Sally Weller
3. How Does Financialization Affect Manufacturing Investment? Preliminary Evidence from the US and UK
Susan Christopherson
4. Manufacturing Logistics
Peter V. Hall
5. Reshoring and the ‘Manufacturing Moment’
Margaret Cowell and John Provo
6. Relocation of Production Activities and Underlying Social Dynamics: An Analytical Framework based on a Canadian Perspective
Patrice Jalette
7. Tool-less Manufacture: Digital Fabrication, 3D Printing and the Third Industrial Revolution
Michael Ward
8. Engineering and Manufacturing: Concurrent Maturation of xRL
Ben Wang, William C. Kessler and Andrew Dugenske
9. Energy and Manufacturing: Technology and Policy Transformations and Challenges
Marilyn A. Brown and Gyungwon Kim
10. Design and Manufacturing: The Competitiveness of American, European and Chinese Industrial Design Companies
Vida Vanchan and John Bryson
11. Intellectual Property and Patents: Knowledge Creation and Diffusion
Dieter Kogler
PART III: INDUSTRY AND FIRM CASE STUDIES
12. Manufacturing Textile Futures: Innovation, Adaptation and the UK Textiles Industry
Megan Ronayne
13. Finding a Future for the U.S. Furniture Industry
Susan Walcott
14. New Geographies of Advanced Manufacturing: The Case of Machine Tools
Ron Kalafsky
15. Farm Machinery: A Changing Path to Feed the World
Dawn M. Drake
16. Hidden in Plain Sight: The North American Optics and Photonics Industry
Jennifer Clark
17. Traditional and Emerging Markets in the Global Steel Supply Chain
Carey Durkin Treado
18. Intermediate Manufacturing: Profit, Dependency and Value Attainment in Supply Chains
Rachel Mulhall
19. Aerospace Manufacturing: Past, Present and Future
Colin G. Drury
20. Manufacturing Stoke: Emergence, Transformation and Consolidation in the Surfboard Industry
Andrew Warren and Chris Gibson
21. Migrant Manufacturing: Translocal Production and the Establishment of a Polish Bakery in Birmingham, UK
Catherine Harris
22. Škoda Auto: The transformation from a domestic to a Tier Two lead firm
Petr Pavlínek
23. Samsung: Restructuring, Innovation, and Global Networks
Sam Ock Park
PART IV: POLICY NARRATIVES IN MANUFACTURING
24. Stability Amid Industrial Change: The Geography of U.S. Deindustrialization since 1980
Marc Doussard and Greg Schrock
25. Searching for Advanced Manufacturing in the United Kingdom and United States: Definitions, Measurement and Public Policy
Finbarr Livesey
26. National Manufacturing Policy, Local Real Estate Markets, and the Missing Region: Prospects for Urban Industrial Development in the U.S.
Laura Wolf-Powers
27. The City and Industry: Deurbanizing Manufacturing in New York City?
Lynn McCormick
28. Manufacturing in the Knowledge Economy: Innovation in Low-tech Industries
Teis Hansen and Lars Winther
29. Crafting a Comeback: Cultivating an Innovative Ecosystem in Mature Regions
Maryann Feldman and Lauren Lanahan
30. From Skill Mismatch to Reinterpretation: Challenges and Solutions for Manufacturing Worker Retention and Recruitment
Nichola J. Lowe
PART V: CONCLUSION
Articles by Jennifer Clark
Regional Studies was launched into a very different environment where regions and nations were more self-contained and there was little dispute that space, place and proximity really mattered. There were no personal computers and no containerized transport, let alone the internet and digital devices enabling instantaneous sharing of information around the world. In the global North this was an optimistic era of full employment, rising prosperity, and diminishing social and spatial inequalities. It was also a period of relative political stability and ignorance of global warming, although the Cold War and nuclear threats loomed large, and there was growing unrest in many countries in the global South. In the North, capital and labour markets were closely regulated, and social protection systems were extensive. Regional studies was a new academic field, with very few journals focused on the development of sub-national territories.
The article highlights how these emerging regional intermediaries support the small-scale producers in the Maker’s Movement and enable these firms to emerge and grow as an embedded, localized, networked group----effectively operating as a cohort not tied by sector or technology but by process---to how they produce not what they produce. These intermediaries recast manufacturing as a practice of working with others rather than working for others thus reintroducing both agency and collective action to the narrative about manufacturing in the US.
Keywords: regions, resilience, industrial districts, innovation systems, small firms
JEL Classifications: O32, R11, R58"
In Uneven Innovation, Jennifer Clark considers the potential of these emerging technologies as well as their capacity to exacerbate existing inequalities and even produce new ones. She reframes the smart city concept within the trajectory of uneven development of cities and regions, as well as the long history of technocratic solutions to urban policy challenges. Clark argues that urban change driven by the technology sector is following the patterns that have previously led to imbalanced access, opportunities, and outcomes. The tech sector needs the city, yet it exploits and maintains unequal arrangements, embedding labor flexibility and precarity in the built environment. Technology development, Uneven Innovation contends, is the easy part; understanding the city and its governance, regulation, access, participation, and representation—all of which are complex and highly localized—is the real challenge. Clark’s critique leads to policy prescriptions that present a path toward an alternative future in which smart cities result in more equitable communities.
Table or Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
1. Uneven Innovation: The Evolution of the Urban Technology Project
2. Smart Cities as Solutions
3. Smart Cities as Emerging Markets
4. Smart Cities as the New Urban Entrepreneurship
5. Smart Cities as Urban Innovation Networks
6. Smart Cities as Participatory Planning
7. Smart Cities as the New Uneven Development
8. Conclusions: The Local Is (Not) the Enemy
Epilogue: The View from Inside the Urban Innovation Project
Notes
Bibliography
Index
This book traces several key themes underlying the core proposition that for a region to work, it has to link research and manufacturing activities — namely, innovation and production — in the same place. Among the topics discussed in this volume are the issues of how the location of research and development infrastructure produces a clear role of the state in innovation and production systems, and how policy emphasis on pre-production processes in the 1990s has obscured the financialization of intellectual property. Throughout the book, the author draws on examples from diverse industries, including the medical devices industry and the US photonics industry, in order to illustrate the different themes of working regions and the various institutional models operating in various countries and regions.
Table of Contents
1. Working Regions: Regeneration by design
2. The Spatial Distribution of Advanced Manufacturing
3. The Rise of the Research Center: The nexus between national innovation policies and regional development
4. The Trade in Innovation: The evolution of intellectual property markets
5. Hidden in Plain Sight: The North American optics and photonics industry
6. Working Regions in Practice: Apparel and outdoor equipment and medical devices industries
7. Flexible Specialization 2.0: The design + build approach to working regions
Published Reviews
"Given the power and timeliness of these arguments, this volume deserves a multi-disciplinary and multi-level academic, as well as an extensive policy-making, readership." -- Professor Neil Coe, University of Manchester, UK (reviewed in the Journal of Economic Geography)
"Christopherson and Clark's book is a wake-up call. It does not provide all the answers, and neither should it. It is a call for new thinking - well crafted and provocative and well supported by empirical research. It has the potential to be a turning point in new regionalist thinking and urgently needed policy development." -- Professor Michael Taylor, University of Birmingham, UK (reviewed in Regional Studies)
"Christopherson and Clark credit several planners and geographers for introducing the principles of distributive regionalism, but in this book, they provide a new conceptual basis for it-their answers to the questions of actors, agency, and power." -- Professor James Harrington, Department of Geography, University of Washington, USA (reviewed in Economic Geography)
"…the empirical detail and breadth of discussion is nuanced, convincing, and worth reading. The underlying message is that SMEs compete with their larger counter parts in terms of access to critical factor markets and inputs." -- Professor Alan MacPherson, Department of Geography, University at Buffalo - The State University of New York, USA (published in Growth and Change)
"These empirical studies are based on a rich and wide literature on the global economy and the region: which makes it easy to agree that the book is both interesting and insightful for a range of students and researchers of the social science disciplines. ...Certainly, it is of value for buying and reading!" -- Katariina Ala-Rämi, Department of Geography, University of Oulu. (published in Economic Geography Research Group Book Reviews)
Abstract
Since the early 1980s, the region has been central to thinking about the emerging character of the global economy. In fields as diverse as business management, industrial relations, economic geography, sociology, and planning, the regional scale has emerged as an organizing concept for interpretations of economic change.
This book is both a critique of the "new regionalism" and a return to the "regional question," including all of its concerns with equity and uneven development. It will challenge researchers and students to consider the region as a central scale of action in the global economy, and at the core of the book are case studies of two industries that rely on skilled, innovative, and flexible workers - the optics and imaging industry and the film and television industry. Combined with this is a discussion of the regions that constitute their production centers. The authors’ intensive research on photonics and entertainment media firms, both large and small, leads them to question some basic assumptions behind the new regionalism and to develop an alternative framework for understanding regional economic development policy. Finally, there is a re-examination of what the regional question means for the concept of the learning region.
This book draws on the rich contemporary literature on the region but also addresses theoretical questions that preceded "the new regionalism." It contributes to teaching and research in a range of social science disciplines and this new paperback edition will also make the book more accessible to students and researchers in those disciplines, those individuals who will influence the re-structuring economies of the 21st century.
– Professor Frank Giarratani, Center for Industry Studies, University of Pittsburgh, US
‘This book represents a major contribution to our thinking about modern manufacturing industries and is not just timely it is long overdue! The authors have done an outstanding job in bringing to bear a range of multi-disciplinary perspectives on a domain which all too often suffers from rather narrow disciplinary analyses. Ranging from engineering to social science and drawing on examples from the US, Europe and Asia, the book provides not only a wealth of fact and illustration but a rich landscape to inform those charged with industrial policy and manufacturing strategies.’
– From the foreword by Sir Mike Gregory, University of Cambridge, UK
The Handbook of Manufacturing Industries in the World Economy
The Handbook of Manufacturing Industries in the World Economy provides a critical and multi-disciplinary state-of-the-art review and analysis of current manufacturing processes, practices and policies. Expanding our knowledge and understanding of production and innovation, this collection demonstrates that manufacturing continues to matter in the world economy.
The contributors, including scholars ranging from engineering to policy to economic geography, cover manufacturing policy and the revival of the industrial base in the US, UK and Canada and engage national and regional strategies for implementing advanced manufacturing policies. Questions of economic resilience in the wake of the recent recession are asked, and industry and firm case studies are utilised in an international comparative context. Applying a wide range of international cases from the US, EU, Australia and Asia, this approach allows readers to view transformations in production systems and processes across sectors, technologies and industries.
Students, scholars and policymakers in the fields of public policy, economic geography, city and regional planning, and business and management will find this collection invaluable in understanding how firms and industries adapt, through dynamic and design-driven strategies, to produce for established and emerging markets.
Contents:
PART I: INTRODUCTION
PART II:(PROCESSES) BUILDING BLOCKS: FACTOR INPUTS AND PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION
1. Manufacturing Management in Theory and Practice
Paul L Forrester
2. Manufacturing and Labor
Sally Weller
3. How Does Financialization Affect Manufacturing Investment? Preliminary Evidence from the US and UK
Susan Christopherson
4. Manufacturing Logistics
Peter V. Hall
5. Reshoring and the ‘Manufacturing Moment’
Margaret Cowell and John Provo
6. Relocation of Production Activities and Underlying Social Dynamics: An Analytical Framework based on a Canadian Perspective
Patrice Jalette
7. Tool-less Manufacture: Digital Fabrication, 3D Printing and the Third Industrial Revolution
Michael Ward
8. Engineering and Manufacturing: Concurrent Maturation of xRL
Ben Wang, William C. Kessler and Andrew Dugenske
9. Energy and Manufacturing: Technology and Policy Transformations and Challenges
Marilyn A. Brown and Gyungwon Kim
10. Design and Manufacturing: The Competitiveness of American, European and Chinese Industrial Design Companies
Vida Vanchan and John Bryson
11. Intellectual Property and Patents: Knowledge Creation and Diffusion
Dieter Kogler
PART III: INDUSTRY AND FIRM CASE STUDIES
12. Manufacturing Textile Futures: Innovation, Adaptation and the UK Textiles Industry
Megan Ronayne
13. Finding a Future for the U.S. Furniture Industry
Susan Walcott
14. New Geographies of Advanced Manufacturing: The Case of Machine Tools
Ron Kalafsky
15. Farm Machinery: A Changing Path to Feed the World
Dawn M. Drake
16. Hidden in Plain Sight: The North American Optics and Photonics Industry
Jennifer Clark
17. Traditional and Emerging Markets in the Global Steel Supply Chain
Carey Durkin Treado
18. Intermediate Manufacturing: Profit, Dependency and Value Attainment in Supply Chains
Rachel Mulhall
19. Aerospace Manufacturing: Past, Present and Future
Colin G. Drury
20. Manufacturing Stoke: Emergence, Transformation and Consolidation in the Surfboard Industry
Andrew Warren and Chris Gibson
21. Migrant Manufacturing: Translocal Production and the Establishment of a Polish Bakery in Birmingham, UK
Catherine Harris
22. Škoda Auto: The transformation from a domestic to a Tier Two lead firm
Petr Pavlínek
23. Samsung: Restructuring, Innovation, and Global Networks
Sam Ock Park
PART IV: POLICY NARRATIVES IN MANUFACTURING
24. Stability Amid Industrial Change: The Geography of U.S. Deindustrialization since 1980
Marc Doussard and Greg Schrock
25. Searching for Advanced Manufacturing in the United Kingdom and United States: Definitions, Measurement and Public Policy
Finbarr Livesey
26. National Manufacturing Policy, Local Real Estate Markets, and the Missing Region: Prospects for Urban Industrial Development in the U.S.
Laura Wolf-Powers
27. The City and Industry: Deurbanizing Manufacturing in New York City?
Lynn McCormick
28. Manufacturing in the Knowledge Economy: Innovation in Low-tech Industries
Teis Hansen and Lars Winther
29. Crafting a Comeback: Cultivating an Innovative Ecosystem in Mature Regions
Maryann Feldman and Lauren Lanahan
30. From Skill Mismatch to Reinterpretation: Challenges and Solutions for Manufacturing Worker Retention and Recruitment
Nichola J. Lowe
PART V: CONCLUSION
Regional Studies was launched into a very different environment where regions and nations were more self-contained and there was little dispute that space, place and proximity really mattered. There were no personal computers and no containerized transport, let alone the internet and digital devices enabling instantaneous sharing of information around the world. In the global North this was an optimistic era of full employment, rising prosperity, and diminishing social and spatial inequalities. It was also a period of relative political stability and ignorance of global warming, although the Cold War and nuclear threats loomed large, and there was growing unrest in many countries in the global South. In the North, capital and labour markets were closely regulated, and social protection systems were extensive. Regional studies was a new academic field, with very few journals focused on the development of sub-national territories.
The article highlights how these emerging regional intermediaries support the small-scale producers in the Maker’s Movement and enable these firms to emerge and grow as an embedded, localized, networked group----effectively operating as a cohort not tied by sector or technology but by process---to how they produce not what they produce. These intermediaries recast manufacturing as a practice of working with others rather than working for others thus reintroducing both agency and collective action to the narrative about manufacturing in the US.
Keywords: regions, resilience, industrial districts, innovation systems, small firms
JEL Classifications: O32, R11, R58"
The role of power within regional firm networks is noted in empirical studies but insufficiently theorized.
It is suggested that network functioning is conflictual and that more powerful network members, particularly transnational corporations (TNCs), leverage regional resources to advance their sustainable competitive advantage. The agendas and power exercised by TNCs within regionalized firm networks have significant implications for regional policy and the uneven allocation of resources and capacities within and among regions. The findings indicate that transnational firm access to resources that are critical to innovation, including university research and skilled labour, negatively affects the potential for innovation by small and medium size firms."
Since the 1980s, different conceptions of regionalism have emerged, reflecting distinct perspectives on place and space and a variety of policy orientations. The debates in planning over which regional policies are both “equitable” and “democratic” have been intense. This article clarifies these debates through a critical regionalist approach to the two prominent “regionalisms,” investment and distributive.
This article then proposes how to strengthen the connections between investment and distributive regionalism and build on the successful practices in each arena. The authors argue that a progressive regionalism requires focus on (1) the labor market as a whole and (2) multiscalar coalitions and policy initiatives.
Keywords: critical regionalism; regional economic development; labor markets; multiscalar coalitions"
The “triple-helix” thesis articulated by Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff argues successful innovation cultures are fostered by continuous and iterative interaction among universities, governments, and industry. The Brookings Institution’s innovation districts model further considers the physical space and relationship culture in which these triple helix interactions manifest: 1) Economic assets (the triple-helix actors); 2) Physical assets (public and private space, infrastructure, and connectivity); and 3) Networking assets (the relationships among the various actors that help advance new ideas).
This paper analyzes the “Tech Square” project. It was built from 2001 to 2003 and simultaneously expanded the size and scope of the Georgia Institute of Technology, a major public research university with an urban campus. The project was initially driven by the need for more programming and academic space, but multiple factors shaped it into the foundation of a growing innovation hub. This case study uses a review of the literature on university knowledge and technology transfer; archival records; interviews; contemporary accounts; and mapping to build an ex post evaluation of Tech Square based on evolving theories of innovation district design. This study makes key contributions through a close examination of the physical form of Tech Square and how it was shaped by its particular Triple Helix environment.
In addition, the Tech Square case highlights how the U.S. political context of limited government funding for university expansion necessitates a more creative economic development role for universities as anchor institutions. The findings of this study will be of interest to practitioners and scholars of economic development, public policy, urban planning and design, public-private partnerships, and higher education seeking to better understand the evolving role of research-intensive urban universities in building and shaping innovation districts.
This article contributes to the debate about the role of the region in the placement and coordination of research centers linking technology-led economic development and science, technology, and innovation policy. Through a comparison of how a ‘‘conscious geography’’ has informed the organization of innovation + development (I+ D) research
centers in the US and Canada, this analysis focuses on the variation in the models of multiscalar policy coordination deployed through the I + D research center frameworks in the
US and Canada. This article begins with a discussion of the theoretical arguments behind territorial innovation systems. It continues by describing the different models of I +D research centers in the US and Canada and the role of the region in each set of policy frameworks. The third section discusses ways policy outcomes are influenced by the initial
consideration of the spatial distribution of production and innovation. The article concludes with the case for a policy model which prioritizes a role for the region as a site of economic and geographic analysis and a partner in the design of a multi-scalar innovation policy.
Keywords Centers of excellence, Regional innovation systems, National innovation policy, Regional economic development, Research centers, North America
JEL Classification R11 R58 O38 O51"
This chapter argues for an increased role for the region‐‐‐‐as an economic unit rather than political factor‐‐‐in the placement and coordination of I+D Centers. Through a comparison of how a “conscious geography” informs the organization of I+D research centers in the US and Canada, this analysis focuses on the variation in the models of multi‐scalar policy coordination deployed through the I+D Center networks in the US and Canada."
In Canada, coordination at the federal level has produced regional development characterized by priority-setting and targeted investment in city-regions and in industries and technologies. In the US, limited territorial-regional development programs are coordinated at the federal level while city-regional development is an ad hoc collaboration among states, local jurisdictions (towns, cities, and counties), and private interests. The resultant US regional development projects are generally aimed at discrete rather than comprehensive goals (e.g. transportation coordination; water resource management; targeted poverty alleviation and other specific economic development strategies).
Looking beyond the national level, this chapter explores international influences that are shaping the two nations’ local and regional development pattern. These include trade and immigration policies, divergent approaches to regional innovation systems and the coordination of national, provincial, and regional technology-led economic development.
We conclude this chapter with a discussion of early evidence as to how the two nations’ local and regional development practices are being affected by the Global recession as well as to the pre-existing challenges of climate change, inequality, and globalization. Will these practices shape a new regionalism that seeks to incorporate the perceived conflicting goals of competitiveness and sustainability? And, if they do so, will they generate fundamental changes in the theory and practice of functional and territorial regional development?
Cities, however, are inherently complex. And in that complexity lies much of their resilience. In fact, Atlanta itself holds onto the formal Latin motto, resurgens, meaning “rising again.” Amid the renewed interest among planners, policy makers, and academics in modeling the resilience of urban and regional economies both as environmental systems and as economic entities, Atlanta is a case of some interest. Indeed, Atlanta is a city with experience adapting and responding to economic transformation and social change. Atlanta is a dynamic place with diverse communities. In fact, as other chapters have documented, the regional economy has becoming more demographically diverse over the last several decades. The simultaneity of Atlanta’s economic and social transformation recalls its informal motto, “a city too busy too hate.” In other words, growth or “rising again” trumps everything else.
Any discussion of economic development in Atlanta carries with it a question about distributional equity. The city has a long history of spatial segregation (Keating 2001; Bayor 1996). Historically, the urban growth machine approach documented by political scientists and urban economists dominated strategy in Atlanta as elsewhere (Dreier et al. 2001; Mollenkopf 1983). However, that emphasis on growing the pie and postponing the question of how it is divided has left a legacy of uneven development in Atlanta’s neighborhoods just as it has elsewhere. Recent economic development polices and projects send mix signals about the whether the Atlanta region become a leader in best practices or a one of the last major metropolitan areas to successfully shift to a sustainable approach to regional economic development that integrates both community and economic development priorities (Clark and Christopherson 2009).
This paper focuses on the regional clustering characteristics of a particular industry: optics and photonics. The industry sits at the crossroads between science policy and economic development---falling along the spectrum from high-tech to an established manufacturing sector. As a consequence, photonics often fails to garner the state and federal investment directed at seemingly newer and flashier enabling technologies like nanotechnology or biotechnology. It also falls beneath the radar of policy makers focused on new materials like lightweight composites or additive manufacturing. However, photonics serves as an important example of the dynamics that underscore working regions in two key examples of Rochester, New York and Quebec, Canada.
Keywords: photonics, regional development, advanced manufacturing, firm networks, working regions
This chapter describes two key intersections between resilience and innovation: innovative governance characterized by policy diffusion networks, and regional economic ecosystems characterized by open innovation. The discussion of policy diffusion networks is based on an analysis of the scope, character, and geographic distribution of such networks since 2011. The discussion of open innovation and regional economic ecosystems relies on an industry case study of “smart cities” as an enabling industry defined by the integration of information and communications technologies with urban infrastructure deployment. The combination of these two empirical cases of evolving mechanisms of and for technology diffusion into cities --- as places and as institutions --- highlight the intersections between resilience and innovation.
In this article we examine how emerging forms of “fictitious capital” produce new patterns in the spatial organization of economic activity separate and apart from more familiar maps of production networks and industrial districts (Holland 1976; Harvey 1982). We look particularly at how two cases of “aspirational commodities”: carbon emissions credits and intellectual property shift the balance between and across regional economies. In addition, the geography of these new and emerging markets reinforces underlying patterns of urban and regional investment and disinvestment. We argue that these sites of investment---divorced from production geographies in the regions---produce a new economic geography which both siphons off capital from production (and economic development) and isolates assets in privileged financial and investment capitals.
Carbon emissions credits and patent portfolios require predictable and enforceable property rights regimes to gain and retain value. Hence, these assets and the intermediaries that trade them tend to operate within advanced economies. As with other “exotic” financial instruments---futures and related derivatives---their value is dependent on receptive regulatory regimes with the power to enforce and adjudicate property rights. The value of these commodities is speculative and cannot be ascertained reliably outside of the narrow political and geographic boundaries in which they traded. The geography of these markets is delinked from regional production networks and pulls capital away from regional economic development focused on production. Rather these markets act as new tools for investment, concentrating capital in regional financial centers and economies: 1) high technology venture capital nodes and 2) energy producing and servicing regions specializing in energy futures trading.
Thus, these emerging commodity (futures) markets become more than efforts to codify or internalize externalities of the production process (carbon emissions and research) and fix a market price to them. They also create geographic sites of alternative (competitive) investment. We argue that any acknowledgment of the disembodied nature of fictitious capital flows and the “virtual” nature of these firm networks requires also a recognition of the geographies produced by the regulatory regimes and specialized institutions required for their “free” flow. Finally we comment on the implications of the geography of fictitious capital for regional policy. The disembodiment of fictitious capital from places of production suggests profound implications for regional economic development policy as it furthers uneven development.
Keywords: Innovation Markets, Regional Development, Capital Markets, Carbon Markets
To merge the discussions of the spatial distribution of innovation and production, I turn a theoretical framework provided by the emerging discussion of “evolutionary economic geography” (EEG). EEG provides an analytical approach to regional economies which balances innovation against job creation rather than privileging technology over production.
First, I begin by tracing six regions through a set of historical analyses of regional economies used to develop influential typologies. I then trace those regions through the “typology of innovation districts” project to ascertain their current position as innovative regions relative to other US regions. Finally, I analyze these six regions using recent employment data. The findings indicate that the geographies of innovation and production may be diverging rather than converging in the US presenting a challenge for regional development policy.
Keywords: regional innovation systems, resilience, evolutionary economic geography
The optics, imaging, and photonics industry in Rochester demonstrates strong potential to develop as an engine of economic expansion in the region. The industry, with its international markets and multiple applications, can provide the region with cutting edge technology and help to regrow
a strong manufacturing sector. This report and action plan focus on the small and medium size firms (SMEs) in the industry and on how this “cluster” can fulfill its promise and realize its full
capacity. There is no shortage of talent in the photonics workforce or in Rochester firms and institutions engaged in new optics and imaging technologies. The region is unusually well
positioned because of its long history in optics and imaging. Public and private investments have developed new technologies and built a highly skilled workforce that is both specialized in a set of technologies and flexible enough to respond to changing markets. The economic development challenge for Rochester is to retain and expand these regional assets for a new economic
environment.
Between June 2001 and December 2002 Cornell University researchers carried out a multifaceted analysis of the Rochester regional economy with an emphasis on the area’s historically dominant industries: optics and imaging and its new economy variant, photonics. This research included industry and occupational analyses based on regional economic data, interviews, focus groups, and an industry survey. A strategic planning conference included stakeholders from throughout
the region representing the public, private, nonprofit, and education communities. This report presents findings from the research effort and the October strategic planning conference.
Our goal is to stimulate further discussion about how the photonics industry can serve as an engine
for economic development and job growth in the Rochester
region.
Industry stakeholders and participants in the October 2002 conference discussed the elements of an action plan. Key steps
included:
1. Decrease duplication of economic development efforts among private and public sector actors
2. Encourage linkages among stakeholder groups in order to foster strategic planning and productive use of available economic development resources
3. Support small and medium sized firms (SMEs) in Rochester — both existing firms and the emergence of new firms — from start-up through commercialization
4. Develop community-industry leadership across stakeholder groups. The broader goal articulated by conference participants and industry stakeholders is the development of a strategic plan to use existing economic development resources as wisely as
possible to develop the industry, promote the region, and improve the standard of living of its
citizens
The opposing positions of the US presidential candidates on labor policy reflected different perspectives on the role of government in economic security and the regulation of the employment relationship. The Democratic Party has historically supported a pro-worker agenda including legal and regulatory support for labor organizing and collective bargaining, income security through job protection, minimum wages, workplace-based health and retirement benefits for workers, and the regulation and/or prohibition of discriminatory practices in hiring, promotion, compensation, and firing (particularly related to race and gender and more recently inclusive of sexual orientation and immigration status).
In contrast, the Republican Party has eschewed a regulatory approach to the labor market and privileged a “laissez-faire” approach to the employment relationship. In general, the Republican Party has opposed labor organizing and collective bargaining, arguing that they are coercive, and instead emphasized the right of each worker to agree on an individual employment contract with his employer. Similarly, the Republican Party has viewed workplace benefits (including health insurance and retirement plans) through a lens of employer flexibility, individual choice, and a preference for privatization. The Republican Party argues that regulatory requirements to provide workers with health and retirement benefits force US-based firms into an uncompetitive position in a global economy. And finally, the Republican Party views questions of employment discrimination narrowly and proposes that policies are best adjudicated through private mediation.
The labor and employment policies of the 2008 presidential candidates reflected the opposing ideological orientation of their respective parties. The specific policy positions of the candidates were found under a number of functional policy headings rather than as a comprehensive labor policy position. For example, the array of policies which support the participation of women in the labor force (including subsidized child-care, job protections and income support for primary care givers who take family leave, prohibitions against workplace discrimination, and flexible work arrangements) fell under the heading of “Work/Family Balance” in the Obama campaign’s policy materials. In the McCain campaign, the similar issue area, support and protections for women and families in the labor force, fell under the dual headings of “Workplace Flexibility in a Changing Economy” and “Workplace Flexibility and Choice.” Neither candidate explicitly categorized these policies as “labor policies.”
This article describes the labor and employment debates likely to emerge in 2009 and during the Obama administration as well as the positions of the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates on policy issues related to labor policy, employment regulation, and economic security for workers stated during the 2008 campaign. There are two major pieces of legislation, the extension of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) and the pending Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) which directly address the areas at the heart of national labor policy: 1) terms and conditions or employment and, 2) workplace wages and benefits. In addition, there are several secondary pieces of legislation pending. These acts are primarily constructed as a response to recent anti-labor judicial decisions during the Bush Administration. Secondly, this article outlines policy initiatives beyond the pending legislation which have been significantly affected by the recent global financial crisis: retirement security, pensions, and social security. And finally, this article discusses pending legislation regarding the regulation of workplace discrimination.
It seems prudent in these times to make the most of our regional potentials and economic endowment. One of the ways we do this is to get smarter about our approach to economic development policy. We must begin to see industry, education, and other institutions in the context of the surrounding economy and begin to develop a unified approach to economic development problems. Today we know that the health of Minnesota is intimately connected to the health of our local and regional economies.
We believe you will find this preliminary report a sort of primer for understanding the industry cluster approach. We hope that this document will be useful to state policy makers, businesses and industry, as well as, to students and other individuals interested in economic development.
An industry cluster strategy offers Minnesota an opportunity to make its economic development efforts more effective and comprehensive. It will require the leadership from and collaboration among government, business, and education. This strategy would ensure that the state builds on its strengths and has the appropriate skills and infrastructure it needs to move the state forward. To be successful, Minnesota’s industry cluster strategy will also need to address both the needs of the state as a whole and the regions within it. Regional clusters located throughout greater Minnesota and also concentrated in major metropolitan areas play a vital role in the state’s overall economy. As awareness and interest in cluster strategies grows throughout the state, a first step in implementing clusters is for state leaders of industry, education, and government to explore together the costs and benefits of an industry cluster approach.
In Minnesota, the reasons for pursuing an industry cluster strategy include, opportunities to: • address the current and projected workforce shortages; • plan for and develop the infrastructure needed to move the state economy forward; • develop and strengthen rural communities and regions of the state;
• provide for strong companies and a strong workforce; and, • create more efficient and effective government
In this preliminary report, we have sought to provide a clear overview of an industry cluster approach. In Chapter 1, we clearly define industry clusters and provide examples of them. In Chapter 2, we articulate the benefits of an industry cluster approach both as a means of understanding industries and to initiate and facilitate a powerful statewide economic development policy that takes into account the full potential of the state’s regions. In Chapter 3, we provide examples of the industry cluster approach, and industries that have been studied by the State and Local Policy Program.
Finally, the appendices are replete with collaborators, examples, and resources that have aided this study greatly and may be valuable resources to the reader. We hope that you, the reader, will find this report helpful in understanding an important new approach to understanding economic development.
Southwestern Minnesota encompassesan 18county region bordering South Dakota and Iowa. It includes the key hub communities of (from largest to smallest in population): Willmar,
Marshall, Hutchinson, Litchfield, Pipestone, Jackson,and Benson. The region has traditionally had a strong agricultural base. The University of Minnesota Extension Service engaged the Humphrey Institute of the University of Minnesota to analyze the key industries that serve as the backbone of regional economic development and that may continue to impact the future economy. The primary focus has been to explore opportunities to strengthen workforce preparedness in the region by looking at strong clusters of industries which already exist in Southwest Minnesota.
In his book entitled The Competitive Advantage of Nations,Michael Porter offers four key determinants of competitiveness which he calls the "Diamond of Advantage." These four determinants, (1)factor conditions,(2) homedemand,(3) relatedand supporting industries, (4)firm strategy,structure,andrivalry, served asthe framework for the analysis.
The project identified four clusters for the region: (1) agriculture equipment manufacturing, (2) dairy processing, (3) value-added agricultural cooperatives, and (4) computer and
electrical components manufacturing. Focus groups, individual interviews, and site visits with local business leaders and economic development professionals offered insight into the industries.
The following is a brief overview of our findings.
Factor Conditions .
The labor shortage has resulted in a smaller pool of available workers with specific technical skills.
.The work ethic is traditionally strong in the region but companies wish to seesoft skills
emphasized in the schools.
.There is a need to promote technical education in the region.
.The housing shortage in the region contributes to the workforce shortage.
Home Demand .
Regional demand servesto stimulate industry innovation and product development (particularly in precision agricultural manufacturing).
Related and Supporting Industries
.Companies depend upon supplies from allover the world. .Local suppliers vary in importance from critical to relatively unimportant.
Firm Strategy, Structure, and Rivalry
.Cooperative structure is highly successfuland well understood in the region.
.Local entrepreneurs responded to the farm crisis by innovating new products and new
businesses. .Competition is regional aswell asnational and international.
Summary of Recommendations .Develop strong linkages between businesses,communities, and educational institutions. .Promote innovation andentrepreneurship. .Increase affordable housing. .Focus attention on livable wage issuesand support servicesfor employees. .Continue to develop infrastructure.