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Is new work really built from old work? And if so, what does this mean for the spatial organisation of economic activities in cities? (Proceedings of the Conference Jane Jacobs 100: her legacy and relevance in the 21st century ed. TU Delft)
Abstract
Jane Jacobs developed a theory of the ‘self-generating economic culture of cities’ (Soja, 2000) with new work being built from old work, through dynamic economic branching. She saw local economic development as an emergent process, charac- terised by organised complexity, as opposed to be something that could be developed top-down through a strategic planning vision. Jacobs has directly influenced a long-standing debate in human capital economics on the relative importance of cross-sector and same-sector knowledge sharing to bottom-up innovation. However, Jacob’s vision of emergent job creation is more complex than this, with her ideas perhaps best being reflected in the discipline of evolutionary economic geography, with its multiple influences from thinkers such as Darwin and Schumpeter, and the complexity theorists. Jacobs’ ideas were strongly spatial, and she saw the physical properties of buildings and streets in cities as both enabling and constraining the emergence of new work from old. However she did less to theorise the broader spatial morphology of self-generating city economies. The paper concludes by asking whether more recent architectural theories, such as space syntax, can enhance our understanding of the physical embeddedness of new work creation.
... However, while Marshall was mostly interested in how interdependences operate within industrial sectors, this thesis is more concerned with the cross-sector economic synergies which exist in large cities. Jane Jacobs strongly appreciated the importance of urban economic diversity, and the way in which cities grow and develop "new jobs on the basis of old" (see Froy, 2018). However, she did not consider how economic processes of branching might lead to a "residue" of industrial relatedness in cities. ...
... This is particularly the case for the economics literature which makes reference to 'Jacobs-externalities' (see e.g. Glaeser et al., 1992, Van der Panne, 2004, Galliano et al., 2015 -this is further discussed in Froy (2018). ...
Despite widespread agreement that agglomeration externalities present a powerful economic force, understanding how they work in practice has constituted a “black box” problem. The word “agglomeration” is itself a crude term for describing the spatial characteristics of cities, which disguises the important role that the spatial configuration of street networks plays in structuring the operation of shared supply chains, labour pools, and knowledge-spillovers. At the same time, while most would agree on the importance of economic diversity to urban agglomeration, it is increasingly recognised that this diversity also has relational structure, with certain industry sectors being more likely to interrelate with each other, and share skills, knowledge, and products. This thesis will unpack the role of these spatial and economic configurations in the functioning of Greater Manchester as an “engine of creativity” in the broadest sense. To do so it draws on two main types of network analysis – space syntax analysis (developed by architects) and industry relatedness analysis (developed by economic geographers). This network analysis is contextualised in qualitative and historical research to produce a “thick description” of the city's evolving economy, with an in-depth focus on the clothing, textile, and waterproofing industries. The configurational characteristics of Greater Manchester's street network have brought diverse economic capabilities within reach of each other, while also connecting them into national and international economic flows. A degree of mess and redundancy in the system has been important to spurring unlikely collaborations and new innovations. However, there has been an overall decline in the capacity of the city street network to support agglomeration externalities in recent years, due to a loss of configurational structure and network density that is partly associated with planning changes from the 1950s onwards. The thesis concludes by considering what this means for contemporary policy.
Since the 1970s, cities world-wide have been witness to radical de-industrialisation. Manufacturing was considered incompatible with urban life and was actively pushed out. As economies have grown, public officials and developers have instinctively shifted their priorities to short-term, high-yielding land uses such as offices, retail space and housing. Inner-city growth from New York to London and even Seoul have generally come at the expense of land uses such as manufacturing or logistics.
Despite the odds, manufacturing is not in terminal decay in western cities. On the contrary, it is at the opening of a new chapter. Urban manufacturing can help cities to be more innovative, circular, inclusive and resilient. Recently, with increasing interest in the circular economy, with cleaner and more compact technology, with more progressive building codes for mixed-use, with increasing awareness of the impacts of social inequality and with a clearer understanding of the value chains between the trade of material and immaterial goods, cities across the world are realising that manufacturing has an important place in the 21st-century urban economy.
While both, enthusiasm for making is increasing and the value of manufacturing is becoming increasingly evident in cities, the topic remains extremely complex and challenging to manage. This book attempts to shed light on the ways manufacturing can address urban challenges, it exposes constraints for the manufacturing sector and provides fifty patterns for working with urban manufacturing.
This book has been written as a manual to help politicians, public authorities, planners, designers and community organisations to be able to plan, discuss and collaborate by developing more productive urban manufacturing. The book is split into two parts.
We first cover an abridged history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, noting how European cities evolved rapidly by harnessing manufacturing, and then how the late twentieth century led to a radical shift in how cities work and think. We’re now at a crossroads between actors that do not see the need for manufacturing in cities and those that consider it vital for a prosperous urban future. Part of the tension comes from the fact that manufacturing is considered a ‘weak land use’ compared to activities such as real-estate development, which has been considered more financially attractive by many actors in the private and public sector. This real estate oriented development narrative is increasingly regarded as short-sighted, but will not change without an alternative vision. We have therefore elaborated a narrative on how urban manufacturing responds to four specific challenges facing cities and how in turn manufacturing needs cities. In practice, planning and design for a topic like this are highly challenging.
The second part of the book is intended as a handbook. By synthesising our research and fieldwork conducted in a number of cities, we have encountered many similarities in terms of problems, challenges and solutions for urban manufacturing. Inspired by the seminal 1977 book, ‘A Pattern Language’ we have translated our findings into fifty patterns which help render the diversity of issues concerning manufacturing more tangible. As both teamwork and negotiation are necessary, exercises and methods are provided to use the patterns. Finally, we have set out twelve key action areas as possible starting points for supporting urban manufacturing.
Today, interesting and important interconnections have been made that promise great leaps forward for innovation systems and entrepreneurial ecosystems - especially operating at the regional or sub-national level of the space economy. Of course, there are politics in such relationships. Most notable are those that are critical of anything that “interferes” with market hegemony (neoliberal bias) which has weakened commitments such as those pioneered in South Korea in the early years of the twenty-first century, later to be followed by numerous Scandinavian policy experiments (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) as well as austerity policy to enlarge regional governance spaces, as in Germany and France (not to mention the dismantling in 2010 of Anglo-regional governance in the UK). Meanwhile, however, it can be seen that good progress in regional innovation policy and entrepreneurial accomplishment at regional level proceeds apace. This is known as the “co-operative bias” in contemporary political economy. Entrepreneurial ecosystems and regional innovation systems are excellent examples of “generative growth” mechanisms (floated in Cooke, P, Generative Growth, Knowledge Economies and Sustainable Development: implications for Regional Foresight Policy, 2002) as a counter to Romer-style individualistic endogenous growth theory. The paper explores the virtues of variety against those of linearity in innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems in exemplary empirical instances.
This essay is both a preliminary critique and a plea for a greater appreciation of Jacobs’ economic writings. While it is true that a number of her economic observations, interpretations and proposals are either factually wrong, questionable and/or probably ill-advised, it is our opinion that her utter lack of respect for traditional academic boundaries and heuristics allowed her to formulate several original insights that deserve closer scrutiny. The paper discusses the roots of Jacobs’ current popularity among mainstream economists, shortcomings in current empirical approaches to her work, and one alternative approach to “Jacobs externalities”. We conclude by an assessment of the main strengths and weaknesses of her study
of economic life.
Who introduces structural change in regional economies: Entrepreneurs or existing firms? And do local or nonlocal establishment founders create most novelty in a region? We develop a theoretical framework that focuses on the roles different agents play in regional transformation. We then apply this framework, using Swedish matched employer–employee data, to determine how novel the activities of new establishments are to a region. Incumbents mainly reinforce a region’s current specialization: incumbent’s growth, decline, and industry switching further align them with the rest of the local economy. The unrelated diversification required for structural change mostly originates via new establishments, especially via those with nonlocal roots. Interestingly, although entrepreneurs often introduce novel activities to a local economy, when they do so, their ventures have higher failure rates compared to new subsidiaries of existing firms. Consequently, new subsidiaries manage to create longer-lasting change in regions.
Marginal spaces are increasingly being taken up for commercial use in London. This includes railway arches, which are appropriated for many different social and economic activities. This article presents the findings of a study on 165 arches in three London neighbourhoods (Hackney, Bethnal Green and Bermondsey), which found the arches to host a disproportionate amount of manufacturing, in addition to concentrations of sectors such as food and drink; and taxi services. Despite being part of Britain’s industrial heritage, the arches have proved highly adaptable ‘hybrid’ spaces supporting office, retail, wholesale and production. They are also modular – businesses move into neighbouring arches as they expand. The arches are therefore well-suited to the postfordist economy of the inner city, which incorporates a highly networked system of small-scale manufacturers and retailers that require flexible and affordable small spaces close to commercial centres. Being arranged side-by-side, and open onto the street, they support knowledge-sharing between firms, while also bringing life to neighbourhoods. The arches have a spatial/functional configuration that might be copied in new forms of industrial development. Indeed, they suggest the possibility of a new spatial form – ‘industrial streets’ as opposed to industrial estates.
Since The social logic of space was published in 1984, Bill Hillier and his colleagues at University College London have been conducting research on how space features in the form and functioning of buildings and cities. A key outcome is the concept of ‘spatial configuration’ — meaning relations which take account of other relations in a complex. New techniques have been developed and applied to a wide range of architectural and urban problems. The aim of this book is to assemble some of this work and show how it leads the way to a new type of theory of architecture: an ‘analytic’ theory in which understanding and design advance together. The success of configurational ideas in bringing to light the spatial logic of buildings and cities suggests that it might be possible to extend these ideas to other areas of the human sciences where problems of configuration and pattern are critical.
This chapter focuses on the issues in current city planning and rebuilding. It describes the principles and aims that have shaped modern, orthodox city planning and rebuilding. The chapter shows how cities work in real life, because this is the only way to learn what principles of planning and what practices in rebuilding can promote social and economic vitality in cities, and what practices and principles will deaden these attributes. In trying to explain the underlying order of cities, the author uses a preponderance of examples from New York. The most important thread of influence starts, more or less, with Ebenezer Howard, an English court reporter for whom planning was an avocation. Howard's influence on American city planning converged on the city from two directions: from town and regional planners on the one hand, and from architects on the other.
In this paper, it is argued that over and above the three sustainabilities of energy, society and economics, there is a fourth: creativity. It poses the question: can credible mechanisms be identified through which cities are more creative than other forms of settlement, as statistical evidence suggests? It proposes that just as mechanisms can be identified linking the generic form of cities to ‘spatial sustainability’ for the first three, mechanisms can also be identified for creativity through the ways cities generates social networks. But whereas the first three sustainabilities are consequences of the form of the city, the fourth sustainability, creativity, is argued to be the reason for the form.