Venture Investments in Israel—a Regional Perspective

This paper analyses the geographic distribution of venture investments in start-ups in Israel, using data for the period 1995–2004. The findings show that their location behaviour differs from that of high-tech activities: they show a pattern of “dispersed concentration” (as compared with a pattern of “concentrated concentration” of high-tech activity), with high levels of concentration in focal places, but at a commuting distance from the main metropolis. This is explained by the fact that venture investors also play the role of entrepreneurs and managers. The comparison between different types of venture investors shows that local venture capital funds lead to the heaviest concentration in the metropolis, in comparison with foreign venture investors. This heavy concentration of venture investments implies increasing regional gaps, with a minimal participation of peripheral regions, even those that enjoy some high-tech activity.     

PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN THE OLD AND NEW EUROPE: THE ROLE OF AGGLOMERATION EXTERNALITIES

As Europe is currently characterized by huge disparities in the economic performance of “old” and “new” states, we investigate whether this is the result of local agglomeration—specialization and diversity—externalities. Our spatial econometric analysis focuses on total factor productivity dynamics over the period 1996–2007 for 13 industries located in 276 European regions. Consistently with the “nursery cities” theory, we find that diversity exerts a positive effect in the knowledge‐intensive services of the “old” Europe urban areas, while specialization is still effective in the “new” Europe low‐tech manufacturing. Human and technological capital has also a positive impact.     

Making Space for Energy: Wasteland Development,Enclosures, and Energy Dispossessions

This paper analyzes why and how wasteland development narratives persist through an evaluation of wasteland development policies in India from 1970 to present. Integrating critical scholarship on environmental narratives and enclosures, I find that narratives of wastelands as “empty” spaces available for “improvement” continue because they are metaphors for entrenched struggles between the government's shifting visions of “improvement” and communities whose land use practices contradict these logics. Since the 1970s, “improvement” has meant establishing different types of tree plantations on wastelands to ostensibly provide energy security. These projects have dispossessed land users by enclosing common property lands and by providing forms of energy incommensurate with local needs, a trend I term “energy dispossessions”. Factors enabling energy dispossessions include the government's increased attempts to establish public–private partnerships to carry out “improvement” and a “field of observation” constructed to obscure local livelihoods. Unveiling these logics will help to problematize and contest future iterations of wasteland development.     

Natural Resources,Innovative Milieux and the Environmentally Sustainable Development of Regions1

Traditional economic theory views natural resources as production factors to be exploited for the benefit of society. However, for this exploitation to be sustainable it must take into account the conservation and/or renewal of the resource. Increasingly, development projects have come to regard natural resources as essential elements of the local environment that must be exploited in ways that ensure future generations can also benefit from them. This process has been termed “patrimonialization”. In this article it is shown that the constructive development of natural resources and the environmentally sustainable development of regions are closely linked and the role of innovative milieux in defining the nature of local development projects is examined.     

“Australianizing” the Local Catholic Church: Polding to Gilroy

The Catholic Church in Australia until around the 1940s has commonly been described as “Irish” and “Roman”. Historians cite the high proportion of Irish clergy and bishops, the latter often educated in in Rome. While the above pattern is accepted, there is evidence of earlier “Australianization.” This article examines such evidence in the foundational Archdiocese of Sydney and focuses on two archbishops, John Bede Polding and Norman Thomas Gilroy. Polding (archbishop 1842–1877) contributed to Australianization by initiating the Australian hierarchy, establishing a local seminary, seeking leaders experienced in Australia, and founding the local Sisters of the Good Samaritan. Gilroy's episcopate (1940–1971) saw the consolidation of the Australianizing trend. Witness to the Anzac landings, the first native‐born archbishop of Sydney and cardinal, Gilroy led the archdiocese as the Australian episcopate and clergy became further Australianized. On his retirement, after being named “Australian of the Year,” the Catholic Church in Australia could best be termed “Australian” and “Roman.”     

LOW- AND MODERATE-INCOME HOUSING IN THE SUBURBS: THE MASSACHUSETTS "ANTI-SNOB ZONING" LAW EXPERIENCE

Can a state re-assertion of power to override local exclusionary zoning practices “open up” the suburbs for low and moderate income households? Such an approach, tried in Massachusetts over the last ten years, has had some notable, though limited results. Some 14,000 units of LMIH have been proposed under the innovative provisions of the Massachusetts “Anti-Snob Zoning” Law, but only about 3,600 have actually been built. The foremost factor limiting the impact of the law has been persistent resistance to it by suburbanites. While much suburban opposition undoubtably stems from racial prejudice and fears, some is based upon rational concern over the costs to local communities of providing services to the residents of subsidized housing. Offsetting these costs with state and/or federal subsidies could lower major barriers to the creation of more housing opportunities in the suburbs for low and moderate income persons.     

CITIES AND DEVELOPMENT

ABSTRACT This paper starts with a “primer” on what we know about the conceptual and empirical links between development and urbanization. While historical experience of developed countries is reviewed, today's rapid urbanization in developing countries offers an intense set of challenges. Rapid urbanization requires massive population movements and enormous local and inter‐city infrastructure investments in a modern context of heavy government interventions in economies. This context raises under‐researched issues, discussed in the second part of the paper. First concerns the spatial form of development. How much development should be focused in mega‐cities, or huge urban clusters, as opposed to being more spatially dispersed, a critical question facing China and India today? How do we conceptualize and measure both the benefits and costs of increased urban concentration; and how are they linked to a country's evolving national industrial composition? Second, what is the evolution of spatial income inequality under massive rural‐urban migration? Is inequality heightened today relative to the past by national government policies which “favor” certain cities and regions and by local government policies in those cities that may try to deflect migrants by offering them poor living conditions?     

The Toulouse Cluster of On-board Systems: A Process of Collective Innovation and Learning

Analysis by product or by type of activity is becoming less and less pertinent when characterizing the production organization of industrial clusters and local productive systems. In numerous regions and metropolitan areas, the way that economic activities are based geographically reveals relationships which go across different sectors of activity, on the basis of the similarity of skills required. At Toulouse, on-board systems, mainly sets of equipment composed of electronic and computer components integrated into an aircraft, a satellite or an automobile, were first developed on a sectorial basis before becoming progressively the subject of transverse skills and knowledge between the different industrial sectors (aeronautics, space, automobile electronics). Today this system is tending to consolidate on the basis of positive externalities such as the sharing of common subcontracting of information technology services, the collaboration of industrial firms with engineering science institutions, the circulation of personnel within the local labour market. To this must be added a strong institutional input which is manifested by the addition of an “on-board systems” section to the Competitive Cluster “Aeronautics and Space” common to the Midi-Pyrenees and Aquitaine regions. In the case of Toulouse, the “on-board systems” activities form the basis of a local organization of these high-technology activities into a local skills system.     

SPATIAL HETEROGENEITY AND THE WAGE CURVE REVISITED*

ABSTRACT Most “wage curve” studies ignore the geography of local labor markets. However, when a local labor market is in close proximity of other labor markets, a local shock that increases unemployment may not lead to lower pay rates if employers fear outward migration of their workers. Hence, the unemployment elasticity of pay will be greater, the more isolated the local labor market is. Wages are also expected to be higher in regions that interact strongly with other regions. These hypotheses are confirmed by means of an estimation of wage curves with data for 327 regions of western Germany over the period 1990–1997.     

一省之议会:咨议局性质发微

岑春煊1907年建议各省设立的咨议局,以及其后江苏绅士与安徽官绅所设计的咨议局,虽然在本质上都不是完全的议会机构,但设计者都将其定位为"全省"的机关,而非"地方"的机关。法部在批评岑氏的时候,更是提出,必须先建立地方议会,才能建立省议会,地方议会是咨议局的基础。1908年出台的通行全国的《咨议局章程》,将咨议局定位为"一省之议会"。在上奏《咨议局章程》的奏折中,在与于式枚辩难的过程中,宪政编查馆都强调,由于中国的行省不同于各国的"地方",咨议局不同于各国的地方议会,而是中国特有的省议会。清季对议会系统的规划,是国会、省议会与地方议会,而非国会与地方议会。今人多将咨议局称为地方议会,实错解了当时制度设计者的良苦用心。     

"But burn - no": the rest of the crowd in three civil disorders in 1960s Chicago

Examining the internal dynamics of three civil disturbances on the West Side of Chicago during the late 1960s, this article describes the presence of numerous people who were not participating in the upheaval. It pays particular attention to “counterrioters,” civilian residents of the neighborhoods and members of local organizations, who tried to persuade those engaging in violence to stop. Local dissent from the tactic of violence suggests that historians should describe these events using the neutral language of social science rather than the politically loaded labels of “riot” or “rebellion.” The article argues that American historians of urban disorders should use the methods of European scholars of the crowd to study the actions of participants in order to ascertain their political content, rather than relying on an examination of their motives.     

SOVEREIGNTY AND SOFTWARE

This article will critically appraise two approaches to cultural policy. The first focuses upon the need for a national cultural policy in order to establish a national “common culture” among its citizens, through measures to promote the arts and popular media sectors, and set limits to the flow of imported materials into the nation. This is what has been termed the “sovereignty” model, and has historically been the driver of cultural policy debates. The second approach, which is called the “software” approach, aims to create cultural infrastructure and other environmental factors to promote a creative economy, whether at local, regional, national or supra‐national levels. It questions the historical divides between “culture” and “industry”, and between “creativity” and “innovation”, and is focused upon the development of future ideas and creative concepts. It draws upon the very different conditions associated with the development of software to those of established arts and media sectors, and aims to extend the “software” model more widely into cultural and creative industries policy.     

Mental maps of global regions: identifying and characterizing “hard” and “soft” regions

ABSTRACT

This article presents the quantitative synthesis of mental maps that identify different types of world regions. It is the result of a large-scale survey conducted in 18 countries, based on a sketch map approach. The number, shape, and extension of these vernacular world regions vary according to countries, cultures, and the personal styles of respondents who drew the maps. However, when we collectively analyze the regions identified by respondents, we observe that the figures of global regions are more or less recurrent. While the most commonly used division of the world is into “continents”, we can identify “hard” and “soft” regions of the world. Whereas a “hard” region, such as Africa, can be recognized relatively unambiguously as a continent, “soft” regions may include numerous regional distinctions such as East Asia, Russia, South East Asia, and the Middle East. Our methodology involves defining a set of characteristics that discriminate between “hard” and “soft” regions (measuring spatial uncertainty and the relative vagueness of limits and fringes), then accounting for the correlation of these areas on the world map.     

“Brain Drain” or “Brain Gain”? Students’ Loyalty to their Student Town: Field Evidence from Norway

In the global economy regions fight a two-front “war” to attract young people. On the one hand, they compete against more urban areas because young people leave home to study and do not return to their home region (“brain drain”). On the other hand, they struggle to attract new residents, students and entrepreneurs to their local region (“brain gain”). The context is a student town of a strong industrial region characterized by a net export of young people and an increasing demand for highly qualified labour. The purpose is to gain insight into how student loyalty to a student town may be enhanced. A partial least square path modelling approach is used to estimate a structural equation model of student town loyalty. One finding is that the creation of student town satisfaction has more influence on student town loyalty than reputation building. “Social activity” is the most important loyalty driver. This antecedent is mediated through student town satisfaction and reputation, as well as university college reputation. The town municipalities and the university college should thus be coordinated in their effort to increase student town loyalty to bring down the “brain drain” and increase the “brain gain” in the region.     

“生态环境”用语产生的特殊时代背景

本文随着地理学家黄秉维院士的回顾,对1980-1982年五届全国人大宪法修改过程中,将草案中的“生态平衡”改为“生态环境”一词、并写入宪法的过程,再现出来予以分析讨论,认为“生态环境”概念提出的背景是全球和中国谋求环境保护事业发展的时代潮流,侧重的是人民生存于其中的自然环境的生态质量,具有积极的社会昭示作用和教育意义,不宜仅从学理上认为“生态环境”的提法有错,因为真实的世界往往比学者头脑中的理论思维更精彩。学术界于2005年5月展开的对“生态环境”、“生态环境建设”概念的研讨,贡献了许多真知灼见,然而,从“生态环境”一词在人大常委会产生过程的基本事实判断,它属于具有相对独立性的政府用语(法定名词),而非严格的科技名词,主要使用于国家行政管理层面,而学术研究中则主要是尊重学者自己的理解和创作。至于如何健全政府用语、消除政府不当用语在国家社会生活中可能带来的负面影响,正是学术界应该积极探讨的问题。     

Collaboration for Local Economic Development: Business Networks,Politics and Universities in Two Swedish Cities

In this article we want to show how conceptions about collaboration for local eocnomic development in Sweden are constructed on national and local levels. We also show how these conceptions have been realized in two different company networks; in the city of Östersund (“Odenskog företagsstaden”) and in the city of Karlskrona (“Telecom City”). In politics and research, local collaboration or cluster formation are viewed as important tools and levers for local economic development. However, we argue that the local labour markets and unemployment rates in our case studies do not differ significantly, despite very different strategies for collaboration. Therefore, we suspect that the political focus on collaboration is a way of legitimizing the change in regional policy rather than a delegation of real power to the local level. If this continues, we fear that the current regional policy is reduced to a discourse of popular concepts rather than a real instrument for local economic development.     

Institutional Arrangements and Political Mobilization in the New Italian Regionalism: The Role of Spatial Policies in the Piedmont Region

The paper focuses on the resurgence of the regions as protagonists of the process of the state rescaling in many European countries. In the EU countries this process can be seen as a result of a mix of economic and institutional factors, which have been producing an increasing competition between the central governments and the regional authorities. The rise of the multi-level governance and of the so-called Euroregionalism has reinforced the role of the regional scale in the territorial development: on one hand, with new actors like agencies and organizations engaged in the economic development (FDI attraction, place marketing, innovation and learning), on the other hand by the resurgence of “old” actors, such as the regions, in many cases empowered by processes of institutional devolution. The literature has investigated this re-composition of the political space with regard to the “hollowing out” and the “rescaling” of the state. On the base of these theoretical underpinnings, we discuss some empirical evidence from the Italian experience, in order to show whether and how the regional structures are not only “spaces for policies”, but also “spaces for politics”. Over the last decade, the changes in legal framework, the external inputs from supranational levels of government—the European Commission—and the re-territorialization processes have introduced many elements of innovation in the role of the regions. By illustrating the case of the Piedmont Region, we try to demonstrate that the transition towards the region as an active space of politics can be mediated by the sphere of the policies, especially the spatial ones.     

What's Next in Researching Cluster Policy: Place-Based Governance for Effective Cluster Policy

Despite their immense popularity and rapid proliferation and development, local cluster policies have met mixed results, and often suffer from limited effectiveness. In this paper, we argue that an important reason for the limited success can be found in the way policies have been grafted onto a particular policy rationale, namely of “cluster building”. Responding to this critique, we propose an alternative rationale, that of “policy leverage”, and a governance model which, in the pursuit of “policy leverage”, presents a new approach to intelligence gathering and to collective strategy-making. The model assigns a key role to “civic entrepreneurs” who operate at the interfaces of public and private spheres, and, of endogenous and exogenous drives, in line with “place-based” approaches.     

The prince and the churl: The traumatic experience of Philip Augustus

Historians have recently argued that by the late Middle Ages a number of Mediterranean economies, notably southern Italy and parts of Spain, stood in a “colonial” relationship vis-à-vis other Mediterranean or northern European regions. For Sicily it has been argued that its economy was based on the exchange of agricultural products, principally grain, for imported manufactures, mainly textiles. Sicilian cloth manufactures were too weak to withstand foreign competition, which created an unbalanced and externally dependent structure of exchange and radically curtailed any chance of autochthonous economic development. This article discusses the empirical evidence upholding these statements about Sicilian textile manufactures. It includes an evaluation of the proportion of foreign imports to local production and consumption, of the socially distinct markets to which foreign and local manufactures catered, and of the nature, quality and extent of local production; the discussion is set in the context of the economic and social transformations taking place in Europe after 1350. The final part briefly analyses the institutional structures and constraints peculiar to Sicilian manufacture, such as the relationship between city and countryside and the apparent lack of any craft organizations. In the light of the extensive evidence for textile manufactures, the author concludes that the empirical basis for the argument that Sicily had a “colonial” dependence on cloth imports is insufficient, that local manufacture was quite capable of withstanding foreign competition of comparable quality, and that the explanation for Sicily's economic development in the late medieval and modern periods must be sought in its own social structures and in the result of the conflicts that arose within them.