Migration,Geographies of Marginality and Informality—Impacts on Upper and Lower Ends of Urban Systems in the North and South

Since the onset of post-industrialism, the research focus in the developed world has increasingly shifted to the role of the information and communication technology, knowledge workers and the creative sector in the global economy. It has led to what could be described as an iceberg approach to economic research. In this approach, the focus is primarily on what happens in the part of the global economic iceberg above the waterline—the “clean”, “fast-moving”, “technologically advanced” elements of the global economy. However another element of the global economy, the informal sector, is growing at an alarming rate in cities in both the developed and developing worlds. These activities are unobtrusively operating in a part of the iceberg below the waterline that receives relatively little attention from the research community. The purposes of this paper are to demonstrate how the information networks created in the iceberg above the waterline are being used by a growing section of the society in the developing world in order to reach first-world destinations. It shows how informality is changing the urban landscape in first-world cities where large concentrations of non-Western populations occur. The paper then shifts its attention to the overwhelmingly informally driven economies of African cities and outlines the inappropriateness of standard economic measures to accurately portray conditions there.     

Economics and Social Sciences: Complements,Competitors, Accomplices?

In November 2000 the 10th annual conference of the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE) took place in Berlin. The meeting drew together 164 academics and researchers from America, Asia and Europe. The conference was organized with the title "Economics and Social Sciences: Complements, Competitors, Accomplices?". As well addressing its central theme, the conference was opened to different economic topics. In this paper, three participants present selected sessions and papers which are of interest for and related to spatial perspectives, that is 'Technology', 'Economy, Society and Territory', 'The Firm', 'Culture and Technology', 'Economics and Social Sciences', 'Borrowing Ideas from the Social Sciences', 'Economic Methodology', 'Conceptual Frameworks' and, in addition to these sessions, Michael Storper's opening keynote address on 'Economic Geography in the Internet Age'.