ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (Current Projects)

For completed Economic Development projects click here.

Doctoral Dissertation Research / Navigating a Changing Europe from Below Activist Cartographies by Social Movements in France and Spain
John Pickles-PI, Sebastian Cobarrubias, PhD Candidate. Since the late 1990’s and the public emergence of global justice movements, dozens of innovative mapping projects have been undertaken by activist groups. These explorations into new forms of cartography have come from an increasing number of groups in different countries. These maps are engaging questions of increasing relevance not only to social movements but also to geography and other social sciences. The questions are reflective of a series of major transformations including: how to conceive of the global; the restructuring of the global economy, including free-trade blocs and the redrawing of borders and flows; and rethinking public intervention and social movement action. Despite the interest in these issues on the part of Geography, and the clear engagement on the part of these activist groups not only with geographical concepts but also with the subfield of Cartogrpahy, there has been little conversation between the discipline of Geography and these efforts. This research will be one of the first engagements with these efforts on the part of Geography. Since there are many groups engaging in these mapping practices, two projects in particular will be focused on for the sake of this dissertation due to their influence on other groups, the number of maps they have been able to produce and how referential they are as map-producing groups. These two are the Bureau d’Etudes based in Strasbourg France and Hackitectura based in Malaga, Spain.

Doctoral Dissertation Research / Re-Conceptulizing Havana: The Role of Public Space in Urban Transformations
Altha Cravey-PI, Matthew Reilly, PhD Candidate. This dissertation research, funded by the National Science Foundation, focuses on the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution the Eastern Bloc in 1989 sent tremendous shock waves throughout the world, of which, ripple effects are still being palpably felt within the city of Havana, Cuba. After decades of benign neglect, a consequence of the Revolutionary government’s anti-urban development policies, the urban landscape of Havana is being transformed as the government, in cooperation with foreign corporations, and newly formed quasi-private entrepreneurial Cuban companies, NGOs, and local participatory planning groups, are re-investing (materially and symbolically) in the built environment and public spaces of the city. Cuba’s efforts at aggressively marketing the cultural economy of Havana, through urban redevelopment, heritage preservation, and tourism development, can be seen as an attempt to marshal space and place as a means of capital generation in line with neo-liberal strategies being employed throughout the West. The main argument of this research is that the combined impact of these global (the collapse of the socialism in Europe, the increased tightening of the U.S. embargo, the emerging support of Venezuela, and the reintegration of Cuba into global markets amidst a prevailing neo-liberal ideology) and local (socio-economic restructuring) processes are necessitating the creation of new temporal and spatial meanings for, and on, the subjects and spaces of the city.

Municipal Wealth Accounting
Emil Malizia-PI. This study, funded by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, involves constructing municipal wealth accounts for one jurisdiction as a pilot study. If successful, the next phase of work would produce a primer to guide municipal managers, finance officers, tax assessors, planners, and others who may want to construct and utilize wealth accounts for their jurisdiction. Measuring wealth at the municipal level would provide very useful information that could answer important questions. What assets does the community have? What are they worth? How have the composition and value of assets, liabilities and net worth changed over time? How do planning regulations influence land values and other components of wealth? How do economic development strategies, especially financial incentives, impact community wealth?

Regional Vision Plan Integration and Implemntation—Phase II
Harvey Goldstein-PI. This study, funded by the NC Dept of Commerce, will examine the strategic objectives identified in Phase I in terms of successful state-regional cluster development policies, feedback from the North Carolina Office of the State Auditor, and the current service delivery structure of the Department of Commerce. The primary outcome of this effort will be a set of concrete policy goals and recommendations to build more seamless coordination between the North Carolina Department of Commerce and other state and regional economic development organizations. Although this report will be
organized around the concept of cluster development, it could have broader implications for state economic development policy and delivery systems.

Regions, Industrial Dominance, and Business Success: An Inquiry into the Geography of Economic Adjustment, Flexibility and Competitiveness
Harvey Goldstein-PI, Ed Feser, UIUC-PI and Joshua Drucker, PhD Candidate. This study, funded by the National Science Foundation, investigates the relationship between a concentrated regional corporate structure—the dominance of a given regional industry by a few large firms—and regional business adaptability and performance. The research will test the hypothesis that manufacturing firms in regions in specific industries dominated by few very large businesses are less productive, other things equal, than firms in the same industries but in regions characterized by less corporate dominance and a broader firm size distribution. The research design combines analysis of secondary data at the micro level with case study research of selected industries and regions in order to maximize the richness and validity of the findings.

The Geographical Consequences of the End of Quota Constrained Trade in the Global Apparel Industry
John Pickles and Meenu Tewar-Co-PIs. This project focuses on the changing geographies of sourcing, production, and trade occurring in the global apparel industry as a result of quota phase out under the WTO Agreement on Textiles and Clothing. It seeks to understand how new patterns of production and trade, and new forms of economic governance are emerging in response to trade deregulation, how these new institutional and industrial actors interact, cooperate, and compete to shape the emerging post-quota trade regime, and how technology, cognitive frameworks and understandings, as well as geographically specific institutions and agents, are transforming the organization of the industry itself. It also seeks to understand how policies are emerging that have the effect of re-regulating trade regimes (through standards, codes, norms, and compliance monitoring on the one hand and through the imposition of safeguard measures against Chinese imports on the other). Finally, the project interrogates the conceptual and cognitive frameworks that have shaped understanding of the global commodity chain and value chain, and engages with recent scientific ideas on complex systems, networks, and actors. This project will document the major changes in the volume, direction, and composition of trade in apparel in the past decade and identify the determinants of the patterns of apparel sourcing and production and how these determinants have changed. The investigators will examine how policy changes, especially those related to quota removal, have affected the processes and patterns of sourcing, upgrading, and competitiveness in the industry and what these have meant for producers in a range of regional settings. We will document the effects of quota removal and supply chain management on the geography of sourcing and production. The project will focus on key product sectors in major regions of the world to provide detailed case studies of industrial restructuring. In particular, we will analyze the ways in which costs and conditions other than factor costs and competitiveness shape industrial outcomes. In particular, we will are interested in the firm strategies that led to decisions of contractors and producers not to relocate production away from existing centers of production to lower-factor cost locations, and how these strategies have been shaped by locally specific conditions, institutional actors, and policy and logistical costs. The research brings together four scientists whose research has focused on industrial change in the apparel industry in specific regions of the world (the U.S. and Latin America; Europe and the post-socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe; India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh). Each team member has contributed to conceptual and methodological frameworks for the analysis of industrial change (global commodity chain analysis, institutional analyses, and regional embeddedness). This team of researchers provides a significant opportunity for detailed comparative analysis to contribute to understanding one of the most contested and complex of global industries at a time of rapid change. The project analyses the role of key actors and regulatory institutions in an industry that has been particularly important for job creation, regional development, and industrial growth, but which has always been institutionally complex and spatially mobile. The project engages directly with on-going concerns over trade liberalization and industrial outsourcing, de-localization and job loss, supply chain consolidation, and the emerging economic geographies of production (particularly the emergence of China as a major producing region) that are at the heart of recent international and national policy debates over globalization and trade regulation. It assesses the utility of differing conceptual frameworks and scientific methodologies in how we understand globalization and global production networks. The project period is three years (Jan 2006-Jan 2008). The investigators have already compiled significant databases on trade, production, and employment in the industry. This collaboration will permit these regional longitudinal analyses to be extended through and beyond the end of quotas. By comparing and analyzing trade data between 1990-2008 we can aim to provide a significant ‘snapshot’ of pre-MFA quota removal apparel geographies through to post-MFA post-quota geographies of apparel sourcing and production. The investigators will survey apparel manufacturers in five regions, carrying out follow-up in depth firm level interviews and regional level case studies. Surveys and interviews will be coordinated by the research team to ensure cross-case comparability. Interview transcripts will be produced to facilitate compilation of firm-level event histories and case studies. The analysis of the determinants of apparel sourcing will be investigated by in-depth interviews with a sample of large retail buyers located in the U.S. and Europe. Results from this project will help state, national, and international agencies better understand the range of actual firm-level responses to post-MFA quota removal that are occurring in the global apparel industry and the roles played by locally specific institutional and industry actors. The research will also enhance scientific understanding of the role of industrial upgrading, workforce quality and costs, and policy instruments in managing employment growth or decline in specific regional contexts. Results of the research will receive broad dissemination in scientific journals and conferences, through a variety of investigator affiliations and websites, through the support of graduate and undergraduate research assistants, and through the development of case study teaching modules. Findings from this project will inform researchers and policy-makers as they debate policies and issues on trade regulation, international outsourcing, and the trajectories of regional apparel production worldwide. The project will advance research collaboration between scholars in three disciplines (Geography, Planning, and Sociology, provide research opportunities for U.S. and international students, develop methodological and conceptual modules for undergraduate and graduate teaching.