The Italian industrial districts and the crisis of the cooperative form: Part I

The theory of the industrial districts—spatial clusters of mutually supporting, mostly small and medium‐sized, flexibly specialized enterprises, held together by virtue of their deep local embedding and relations of trust—is now a well‐developed part of regional planning doctrine and folklore. The canonical cases are those located in the so‐called Third Italy’. In Part I of this paper, I review the theory, and present the first of three case studies, each of which challenges one or another fundamental element of the district model. Here, I consider evidence of penetration into the Emilian food packaging machinery district by outside financial interests, which have proceeded to impose hierarchical order on what had previously been more collaborative relations among more or less symmetrically powerful firms. The remaining two cases—on the emergence of vertical production systems in the clothing sector of the Veneto, and on the contradictions of excessive fragmentation in the production of Pratese woolen textiles—will be presented in Part II. These cases do not point to economic failure, per se, but they do (I think) point to an underlying contingency and ultimate instability of the canonical district form.     

Building local nodes in a global sector: Clustering within the aeronautics industry in Montreal

This article analyzes the mechanisms through which metropolitan governance is established in Montreal's aeronautics sector, one of the most important and innovative industries in the region. The article also examines the role of lead firms, socio‐economic actors, and public agencies from a territorial point of view. It is established that on the one hand the existence of a small number of prime producers at the local level facilitates productive linkages among businesses through subcontracting, and on the other hand, the intensive participation of intermediate socio‐economic agencies and organizations ensures a metropolitan anchoring of the sector and creates a strong territorial identity among the players.     

Changing partnerships: Firms and the French state

Lindblom's hypothesis that in market‐oriented systems businessmen predominate over statesmen is tested in relation to the way French firms have switched partners since the 1980s. Instead of a dirigiste—style special relationship with government, they have formed multinational partnerships. The implications of the new competitive context, under the pressure of delocalisation panic, are considered, prior to the examination of the effects of nationalisation and privatisation on the national identity of firms. The virtual bankruptcy of Crédit Lyonnais is examined as an example of state‐dependent capitalism, and the impact of EC competition policy is considered. The partial industrial disengagement by the French government in favour of market competition reinforces the applicability of Lindblom's hypothesis to the relations between firms and state in France.     

Hotelling Games with Three,Four, and More Players*

Abstract. This paper extends the interval Hotelling model with quadratic transport costs to the n‐player case. For a large set of locations including potential equilibrium configurations, we show for n > 2 that firms neither maximize differentiation—as in the duopoly model—nor minimize differentiation—as in the multi‐firm game with linear transport cost. Subgame perfect equilibria for games with up to nine players are characterized by a U‐shaped price structure and interior corner firm locations. Results are driven by an asymmetry between firms. Interior firms are weaker competitors than their rivals at the corners. Increasing the number of firms shifts even more power to the corner firms. As a result, there is too much differentiation from the social perspective if n ≤ 3, while adding firms leads to a level of differentiation in equilibrium below the social optimum.     

Innovation projects and local production networks: A case study of Hertfordshire

This paper evaluates some of the key arguments underlying what is called here the local production network paradigm (LPNP). These are presented as three interlinked hypotheses that turn on the idea that firms competing in world markets need to accommodate continuous change by fostering product or process innovation. The definition of innovation used in this study is “the commercially successful exploitation of new technologies, ideas or methods through the introduction of new products or processes, or through the improvement of existing ones” (EC DG XIII, 1996, p. 54).

One conventionally described organizational response to this requirement to accommodate continuous innovation is to dis‐integrate firms and set up local production networks. Local production networks are defined in this study as “collaborative linkages between local firms and local factors of production”. Such networks are said to rely on local resources of various kinds to enable them to innovate on a continuous and incremental basis. As a result of such dependencies on local factors, and their interconnectedness with each other, the local production network (LPN) firms then become ‘embedded’ in their localities. Such networked economies have been variously described as new industrial districts, areas of flexible specialization, and innovative milieux.

The evidence presented to test these hypotheses is based on a case study of innovative, award‐winning firms in Hertfordshire. The findings show that although these firms do compete successfully in fast‐moving international markets, they do not rely much on local production networks, as defined here, to enable them to do so. The findings call into question the general applicability of the LPNP. Questions are raised particularly with respect to innovation in the important minority of highly innovative core metropolitan regions.

Innovation is argued to be an interactive process that is both driven by a steady supply of technological advances and stimulated by different types of consumer demand. In the case of the firms interviewed in Hertfordshire, most of their innovative projects were developed by the firms working individually, and in isolation, from other local businesses using high quality, knowledge, information, human resources and venture capital. At the same time, these firms were also pulled by demands from military, health and company consumers. Only in the case of the minority of innovations that were purchased in the first instance by private final consumers were local production networks of some significance.     

Intimate Mediations of For‐Profit Conservation Finance: Waste,Improvement, and Accumulation

How to understand the marriage between accumulation and conservation? The paper draws from extensive research into one value chain, from the advisor in New York City to a wildlife‐friendly cattle business in Kenya. Making this enterprise return in money requires intimate and relentless efforts to transform wasteful conduct across a range of institutions and people; we focus on the attempted production of NGO economicus, homo economicus plus, and bos Taurus economicus. Drawing from feminist and postcolonial theorists of capitalism, we emphasise how green capitalist value production does not always hinge on extinguishing other‐than‐capitalist‐social relations but rather attempts to mobilise and harness such differences, including non‐profit‐seeking values, logics and relations. The paper concludes by reflecting on the temporal challenges facing for‐profit conservation finance, including those posed by previous regimes of accumulation that it relies on but also wants to overcome.     

Auto-production systems in Japan: organisational and locational features

Through their highly controlled production systems Japanese auto-makers have succeeded to a considerable degree in extending the basic principles of modern factory production–specialisation and timing–to regional space. Thousands of firms, large and small, hierarchically connected in subcontracting layers supply a myriad of parts and engineering services to the auto-makers. Automakers minimise the level of stocks of parts at their plants by requiring their direct suppliers to make frequent deliveries. These firms function as extensions of the auto-maker's plant with the result that the regional production system functions with precision approaching that of a single well-organised factory.     

Small Businesses Need Strong Mediators: Mitigating the Disadvantages of Peripheral Localization Through Alliance Formation

This paper investigates how small entrepreneurial firms in two peripheral regions developed by entering the oil and gas industry. The paper draws on previous studies related to the establishment of strategic alliances and emerging clusters and contributes to these research streams by examining the disadvantages of peripheral localization and small firm size. We use a longitudinal case study based on primary data consisting of 54 in-depth interviews conducted between 2007 and 2012 to illustrate that when large-scale oil and gas projects enter a peripheral region, oil companies can moderate local firms' disadvantages related to peripheral localization by actively facilitating relationships with established national firms. By facilitating such relationships and maintaining an active moderating role, strategic alliances and emerging cluster structures can arise. A cross-case analysis illustrates that the oil company had a decisive role in one of the two cases in two dimensions: its role as intermediary between local firms and national firms and its role in fostering the development of an emerging cluster structure by stimulating the establishment of new firms through the oil and gas project. In the second case, the oil company was unable to facilitate regional development.     

Illustrations of the History of Knitting Selected from the Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum

Abstract

Based on new archival findings, this essay maps the life and business strategies of Brussels tapissiers Albert Auwercx and Judocus de Vos. It shows that categorising Auwerxc as a minor tapissier — a label he was assigned in the past — ignores the underlying structure and dynamics of the industry. Brussels tapissiers created an intricate web of social networks that generated trust, which paved the way for semi-structured and flexible cooperation between small firms. Judocus de Vos also belonged to the Brussels social and production networks but made his name as a commercial link and broker between Brussels, the Antwerp-Oudenarde production and trading complex, and the European élite — particularly after 1719 when he handed over the reins and assets of the De Vos workshop to his brother Jan-Frans.     

Radical Urban Horticulture for Food Autonomy: Beyond the Community Gardens Experience

For those who are interested in radical changes, it is important to analyze the forms of resistance that promote self‐managed practices, also at apparently very small scale. In Italy the experience of “community gardens” is usually named “orti urbani”. In the last 10 years, the occupation of abandoned urban spaces to set up orti urbani has increased within the squatting movement. The case of the city of Rome is interesting because there has been a widespread activity to organize self‐managed spaces to grow fruit and vegetable plants. These initiatives make up not only potential spaces of dense social networking, political action and discussion on environmental issues, but also supporting large food autonomous configurations such as Genuino Clandestino, that are challenging dominant food production. A proliferation of orti urbani located in Social Centers, squatted houses or other abandoned spaces represents a scalar strategy to re‐appropriate and commune urban space.     

LOCATING OUTSIDE A LINEAR CITY CAN BENEFIT CONSUMERS*

ABSTRACT We investigate the effects of restricting the locations of firms in Hotelling duopoly models. In standard location‐price models, the equilibrium distance between firms is too great from the viewpoint of consumer welfare. Thus, restricting the locations of firms and shortening the distance between them improves consumer welfare by reducing prices and transport costs. We introduce strategic reward contracts into location‐price models and find that, in contrast to the above result, restrictions on the locations of firms reduce consumer welfare. These restrictions reduce transport costs but increase prices by changing the strategic commitments of the firms.     

Feminist Forays in the City: Imbalance and Intervention in Urban Research Methods

In this paper I argue that imbalances and silences persist in urban research. In particular, there is insufficient attention to anti‐racist and feminist theoretical, methodological, and empirical insights. Intersectional and materialist urban analyses that take difference seriously are under‐represented, while patriarchy, privilege, and positivism still linger. As a partial and aspirational remedy, I propose a “Feminist Partial Political Economy of Place” (FPEP) approach to urban research. FPEP is characterized by: (1) attention to gendered, raced, and intersectional power relations, including affinities and alliances; (2) reliance on partial, place‐based, materialist research that attends to power in knowledge production; (3) emphasis on feminist concepts of relationality to examine connections among sites, scales, and subjects, and to emphasize “life” and possibility; and (4) the use of theoretical toolkits to observe, interpret and challenge material‐discursive power relations. My own critique and research centers on North American cities, but FPEP approaches might help produce more robust, inclusive, and explanatory urban research in varied geographic contexts.     

Privatization: Property and the Remaking of Nature–Society Relations Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract: The Western Alaska Community Development Quota (CDQ) is an economic development program that allocates a portion of regional fisheries to groups representing poor, mostly indigenous people of western Alaska. The CDQ groups lease their quota to industrial fish firms and reinvest their revenues back into the fishery. In this way, quota becomes a form of property used for capital accumulation. The CDQ is conceptually confusing because it appears as neoliberal privatization and as redistribution motivated by social justice. Rather than choosing between these, this paper argues that quota‐as‐property brings together these seemingly opposed goals. Once the idea of property is expanded to include interdependence and reasons for property relations, it is possible to see that privatization in the CDQ embodies multiple logics without being incoherent. The paper concludes that the complex social relations of property open up space for identifying diverse practices within neoliberalism.     

Modeling of hydrogen production by serpentinization in ultramafic‐hosted hydrothermal systems: application to the Rainbow field

The production of hydrogen by serpentinization in ultramafic‐hosted hydrothermal systems is simulated by coupling thermodynamic and dynamic modeling in the framework of a thermo‐hydraulic single‐pass model where a high‐temperature hydrothermal fluid moves preferentially through a main canal of high permeability. The alteration of ultramafic rocks is modeled with a first‐order kinetic formulation, wherein the serpentinization rate coefficient, K_r, takes the form: K_r = A exp(?α(T ? T₀)²). In this formulation, α determines the temperature range of the reaction and T₀ is the temperature at which the serpentinization rate reaches its maximum. This model is applied to the Rainbow hydrothermal system, which is situated on the Mid‐Atlantic Ridge, and characterized by a high temperature, a high mass flux, and a very high hydrogen concentration. The results show that a first‐order kinetic law gives a useful representation of the kinetics of serpentinization. The estimated value for the parameter A in the temperature‐dependent formulation of the serpentinization rate coefficient lies in the range (1–5) × 10^?11 s^?1. This effective parameter is several orders of magnitude lower than the values obtained from small grain‐size experiments, but in agreement with other published modeling studies of natural systems. Numerical simulations show that the venting site is able to produce the observed high concentration of hydrogen during the whole continuous lifetime of the Rainbow site.     

New‐Build Gentrification and the Everyday Displacement of Polish Immigrant Tenants in Greenpoint,Brooklyn

In response to research that has downplayed or denied the reality of gentrification‐induced displacement, critical urban geographers have called for rethinking the concept of displacement. This article takes up that call by examining the impact of new‐build gentrification on the everyday place‐making abilities of Polish immigrant tenants in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Based on nearly four years of work as a tenant organizer, this article looks at the forms of “everyday displacement”—the ongoing loss of the agency, freedom, and security to “make place”—experienced by immigrant tenants who struggle to remain in the neighborhood. Drawing upon Lefebvre's spatial triad and Blomley's work on the social relations of property, this article argues that everyday displacement is experienced through the production of new spaces of prohibition, appropriation, and insecurity that constitute a form of neighborhood erasure.     

The Potential of EBSD and EDS for Ceramics Investigations—Case Studies on Sherds of Pre‐Columbian Pottery

The work focuses on the potential of structural and chemical examinations by scanning electron microscopy based methods for archaeometric studies on ceramics. Achieved by a single preparation technique (polished block sections), the feasibility and benefits of electron backscatter diffraction are demonstrated as case studies using polychrome examples of pre‐Columbian pottery (Wari, Moche and Cajamarca). Elemental and phase maps allow for separate consideration of clay and temper. Identification of mineral phases and intergrowths of temper particles provide information for clarifying clay procurement and firing techniques with respect to local versus non‐local pottery to enlighten trade relations, technological transfer and shared heritage of pre‐Columbian cultures.     

FIRM HETEROGENEITY,MULTIPLANT CHOICE,AND AGGLOMERATION

We examine the organization and location choice of heterogeneous firms in a two‐region economy. When some high‐productivity firms engage in multiplant production, a reduction in transport costs causes two changes in a small region: the closure of plants by high‐productivity multiplant firms and the relocation of low‐productivity single‐plant firms to the region. In the presence of high‐productivity multiplant firms, therefore, a decline in transport costs reinforces the spatial sorting of firms by productivity, enlarging the productivity gap between large and small regions. Conversely, reducing investment costs weakens the spatial sorting effects on regional productivity disparities.     

Hypermobility and the governance of global production networks: The case of the Canadian cycle industry and its links with China and Taiwan

Western firms engaged in mass retailing and in product assembly make frequent changes to their global production networks (GPNs). Indeed, some GPNs show a tendency to hypermobility, which we define as a rapid switching of economic links among manufacturers, importers, and retailers. This theme is explored in the context of the Canadian bicycle industry where domestic production collapsed between 1980 and 2008, following a century of remarkable stability. After a period of flux when Taiwan was the key player, China has emerged as the dominant original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of bicycles sold in Canada, with big‐box stores accounting for the great majority of sales. We connect this increasing fluidity in supply arrangements and in the global organization of the industry with the governance of these GPNs. Several aspects of governance are considered, including the Sloanist practices of the largest Canadian retailers, and the activist role of the Chinese state in directing regional patterns of manufacturing in China.     

Which national group will I identify myself with? The role of preferred and perceived identity representations

Research shows that the more people identify with a national in‐group, the more their citizenship representation becomes in line with the citizenship discourse attached to this national‐identity. However, although national identification may lead to a preference for a specific citizenship representation, national identification might itself depend on preexisting citizenship representation preferences. In line with this, a longitudinal study among Flemish‐Belgian high‐school students (N = 275) showed reciprocal relations between national identification and citizenship representation. A second study among Flemish‐Belgian high‐school students (N = 407) then showed that strength of national identification does not simply depend on preexisting citizenship representation preferences but on the (mis)match between such preferences and the citizenship representation perceived to be attached to a national‐identity. In addition, results showed that the relation between national identification and out‐group attitudes depends on the national‐identity under consideration.     

Communications, innovation, and territory: the production network of Swift Meat Packing and the creation of a national US market

This study is an historical and theoretical account of how market territory, configured from flows of production and trade, gets reshaped by the innovative behavior of business firms. The research for this study focuses on the production network developed in the late nineteenth century by the American firm of G.F. Swift & Company. The central theme of this case is how businesses reorganize their strategies, routines and structure as transport and communications technology changes, and how the innovations in production networks engineered by firms as part of this reorganization, become territorially embedded and reconfigure the space for economic activity. The production network pioneered by Swift from railroad and telegraph technology, created long-distance production and trade linkages in the economy that widened the boundaries of formerly-localized markets, and established the foundations of a more geographically-extended, nationally-oriented market space. As it widened market boundaries, however, the network of Swift concentrated economic activity in new places. The essay builds a theoretical framework of the route from the ‘communications revolution,’ to the process of innovation in the firm, to the production network, to territorial transformation. This framework reveals how the railroad and telegraph revolution enabled firms in the US to develop innovations in production networks on the basis of vertically-integrated, geographically-dispersed enterprises organized over a national market space. 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved