Industrial Organization Commons^™

Working Regions focuses on policy aimed at building sustainable and resilient regional economies in the wake of the global recession. Using examples of four ‘working regions’ — regions where research and design functions and manufacturing still coexist in the same cities — the book argues for a new approach to regional economic development. It does this by highlighting policies that foster innovation and manufacturing in small firms, focus research centers on pushing innovation down the supply chain, and support dynamic, design-driven firm networks. This book traces several key themes underlying the core proposition that for a region to work, it …

Manufacturing has long been the focus for progressive reforms. But these reforms, pushed by labor in the 1930s and 1940s, did not particularly involve city planners, and the idea of “progressive planning” that emerged in the 1960s focused on community and neighborhood struggles over urban renewal, highway clearances and the depredations of real estate developers—not necessarily manufacturing. The question now is whether, with changes in manufacturing, and new initiatives from the Obama administration, progressives can make a contribution through the manufacturing sector, and whether professional planners can play a role at all.We asked a group of geographers and planners—academics and …