Michael Storper, Thomas Kemeny, Naji Makarem

The Rise and Fall of Urban Economies

Lessons from San Francisco and Los Angeles

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Michael Storper is Professor of Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles.Thomas Kemeny is Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Southampton.Naji Makarem is Lecturer in the Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU) at University College London (UCL).Taner Osman is an instructor in the Department of Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles.

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Produktdetails

• Innovation and Technology in the World Economy
• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 328
• Erscheinungstermin: 2. September 2015
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 237mm x 161mm x 25mm
• Gewicht: 612g
• ISBN-13: 9780804789400
• ISBN-10: 0804789401
• Artikelnr.: 42791629

Autorenporträt

Michael Storper is Professor of Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles.Thomas Kemeny is Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Southampton.Naji Makarem is Lecturer in the Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU) at University College London (UCL).Taner Osman is an instructor in the Department of Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
1The Divergent Development of City Regions
chapter abstract
Economic development is geographically uneven; incomes differ widely across
places. After a long period during which incomes tended to become more even
across cities and regions within developed countries, they are now
diverging again. In 1970, the San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los
Angeles regions had very similar per capita incomes; in 2012, Los Angeles
was almost 30 percent lower than the Bay Area. Understanding this process
of divergence, which is widespread among metropolitan regions around the
world, is a window on understanding economic development more generally.
2Divergent Development: The Conceptual Challenge
chapter abstract
Innumerable forces influence economic development, and research on it uses
many different methods and comes from several disciplines. Four theoretical
fields that contribute to understanding divergent economic development of
city regions are development theory, regional science and urban economics,
the new economic geography, and the social science of institutions.
Together, they provide a robust framework for understanding convergence and
divergence in economic development.
3The Motor of Divergence: High-Wage or Low-Wage specialization
chapter abstract
The specialization of urban regions in different tradable industries is the
source of significant differences in wages and income levels. Los Angeles
was more specialized than San Francisco in 1970 but considerably less
specialized in 2010. During this period, San Francisco consolidated its
specialization in activities related to information technology, and Los
Angeles consolidated its hold on the entertainment industries, but Los
Angeles lost many other high-wage specializations it formerly contained,
replacing them with low-wage specializations. Los Angeles also lost its
lead over San Francisco in innovative sectors, as the latter soared in its
per capita patenting rate. All in all, Los Angeles's economy came to have
less overall focus and sophistication, while San Francisco's came to have
more.
4The Role of Labor in Divergence: Quality of Workers or Quality of Jobs?
chapter abstract
Differences in average regional wages between San Francisco and Los Angeles
increased from 5 percent in 1970 to 35 percent in 2010. Wage gaps are due
partially to increasing differences in the skills of the labor force but
are proportionally greater than the increase in skills gaps. Skills gaps
themselves must also be explained. Do they emerge as different kinds of
people migrate or stay according to different kinds of jobs created in the
two regions? Or is it the reverse: people go to the two regions in search
of lifestyle amenities and housing, and the two economies diverge by
absorbing different kinds of people? This is the key debate in urban labor
economics. This chapter shows that the key force in drawing different kinds
of labor was an increasing gap in the types of employment available, itself
driven by differences in regional economic specialization.
5Economic Specialization: Pathways to Change
chapter abstract
Industries, firms, and entrepreneurs in the Bay Area and Los Angeles did
not plan the economic divergence of their regions. They faced challenges
from the restructuring of the Old Economy and benefited from the
opportunities of the New Economy. Their successes and failures widened the
income gap between the two regions. This chapter presents comparative case
studies of entertainment, aerospace, information technology, logistics, and
biotechnology in San Francisco and Los Angeles, showing how they developed
differently and shaped specialization, wages, and income divergence in the
two regions.
6Economic Development Policies: Their Role in Economic Divergence
chapter abstract
Regional economic development is shaped by many policies, which are
implemented by national governments, regional and state governments, and
local governments. But local economic development policies in Greater Los
Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area since 1970 had little to do with the
economic divergence of these two regions. In reality, many so-called
economic development policies have little to do with economic development
as such, instead emphasizing land use changes and competition for sales tax
revenue rather than industry and job development. Many of the problems with
local planning and development policies in the United States in general are
exemplified by the comparison of the San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los
Angeles.
7Beliefs and Worldviews in Economic Development: To Which Club Do We
Belong?
chapter abstract
Dominant beliefs-those of political and economic entrepreneurs in a
position to make policies-over time result in the accretion of an elaborate
structure of institutions that determine economic and political
performance. This chapter documents the worldviews and beliefs of regional
leaders in the San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles since 1970.
In Los Angeles, leaders never developed a consistent vision of the new
economy or the region's role in it; in San Francisco, this vision emerged
early in the 1980s and was reinforced over time and diffused throughout the
region's leadership institutions. Moreover, San Francisco's leadership
institutions are stronger and more interconnected than those of Greater Los
Angeles, and its political majorities are more consistent over time,
leading to more consistent regional policy agendas.
8Seeing the Landscape: The Relational Infrastructure of Regions
chapter abstract
Networks of people and organizations create "invisible colleges" in labor
markets, industries, communities, and political leadership. They influence
who gets access to other people and hence to implementing ideas and finding
resources. This chapter measures the corporate, philanthropic, and
leadership networks of the San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles
since 1980. It shows that they had similar starting points in terms of
their structure of connections, but that they diverged. Principal firms and
industries in Los Angeles became less connected, while in San Francisco
they become more closely intertied, with broader and deeper connections
among their boards of directors. Networks among scientists, researchers,
entrepreneurs, and firms are much denser in San Francisco than in Greater
Los Angeles. There are more industry-building dealmakers in the Bay Area
than in Los Angeles. The relational infrastructures of the two regions have
become more and more different over time.
9Connecting the Dots: What Caused Divergence?
chapter abstract
The sources of economic divergence lie in their divergent levels and types
of economic specialization. Specialization is caused by many forces,
including lucky breakthroughs in technology, particular powerful
individuals, decisions of key firms at critical turning points, and lock-in
effects from initial advantages. Most of these forces cannot be predicted
or created. But they must find fertile ground, and this ground is prepared
by the ability of the regional economy's firms, leaders, and workers to
create and absorb the organizational change that is key to new, high-wage
industries. Los Angeles and San Francisco are a striking contrast in these
abilities, with Los Angeles's firms and leaders persistently returning to
Old Economy organizational forms and San Francisco's firms and leaders
consistently inventing the organizational forms of the New Economy that
become models for the American and world economies as a whole.
10Shaping Economic Development: Policies and Strategies
chapter abstract
High-wage specialization comes from a complex sequence involving
entrepreneurship, encouragement by local robust actors or leaders,
breakthrough innovations, new organizational practices, the emergence of
supportive overall relational infrastructure and networks, the
proliferation of new specialized brokers and dealmakers, the diffusion of
conventions or rules of thumb for doing business in new ways, and
ultimately the consolidation of major firms. What is common to all
processes of successful respecialization of a region's economy is the
emergence of the right kinds of networks, organizational practices,
worldviews, and beliefs for the region's evolving economic specializations.
It is crucial to align understandings and change expectations so as to
change policy agendas and to open up new forms of private action. When
regional conversations are outdated, the process of organizational
adjustment is stymied, as it has been in Los Angeles for 40 years. Old
conversations must not crowd out new ones.
11Improving Analysis of Urban Regions: Methods and Models
chapter abstract
The chapter assesses the contributions of regional science and urban
economics, the new economic geography, and the institutional approaches
found in economics, sociology, and political science to the analysis of
urban economic development. The concept of development clubs should guide
empirical identification of city-regions that are in different structural
categories and their different constraints and opportunities. Each theory
has additional empirical and methodological gaps that can be improved on.
If this is done, then the field of comparative regional economic analysis
will be able to offer more robust insights into economic development.