| Abstract: | Faced with the dramatic loss of manufacturing employment in the late 1980s and early 1990s, two regions of Massachusetts became home to innovative industrial modernization programmes designed to enhance the performance of remaining enterprise and hopefully strengthen the state's manufacturing base. The Machine Action Project, a community and industry based endeavour in Western Massachusetts, worked with hundreds of metalworking firms while in Eastern Massachusetts the University of Massachusetts Lowell restructured many of its existing academic and research activities to better meet the needs of firms and communities. These two programmes are analysed for the ways in which they established public-private partnerships to enhance their regional economies as well as contributed to the ongoing discussion over the role of public institutions in sustainable regional development. |
