An Introduction to Economic Geography

Globalisation, Uneven Development and Place

Danny MacKinnon, Andrew Cumbers

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317408703
• Edizione: 3
• Argomento: Naturwissenschaften
• Categoria: Geographie

In the context of great economic turmoil and uncertainty, the emergent conflict between continued globalisation and growing economic nationalism means that a geographical economic perspective has never been so important. An Introduction to Economic Geography guides students through the key debates of this vibrant area, exploring the range of ideas and approaches that invigorate the wider discipline.

This third edition includes new chapters on finance, cities and the digital economy, consumption and the environment. Underpinned by the themes of globalisation, uneven development and place, the text conveys the diversity of contemporary economic geography and explores the social and spatial effects of global economic restructuring. It combines a critical geographical perspective on the changing economic landscape with an appreciation of contemporary themes such as neoliberalism, financialisation, innovation and the growth of new technologies.

An Introduction to Economic Geography is an essential textbook for undergraduate students taking courses in Economic Geography, Globalisation Studies and more broadly in Human Geography. It will also be of much interest to those in Planning, Business and Management Studies and Economics.

Part 1
Foundations

Chapter 1
Introducing economic geography

Topics covered in this chapter

• ➤ The main themes of the book:
  • ⚫ globalisation and connections across space;
  • ⚫ uneven geographical development;
  • ⚫ the importance of place;
• ➤ The meaning of the economy.
• ➤ The nature of economic geography as an academic subject.
• ➤ The political economy approach to economic geography that we adopt in this book.

1.1 Introduction

In late 2013, a wave of local protests and marches broke out in San Francisco against Google's commuter buses (Corbyn 2014). While commuter buses may seem an unlikely trigger for social conflict, they had become symbolic of acute local concerns about the impact of a dramatic process of gentrification (the movement of wealthier groups into an area) on housing affordability in San Francisco and the Greater Bay Area (Schafran 2013), a conflict that is being echoed in global cities like London. In recent years, the renowned urban charms of San Francisco have made it a popular bedroom city for people who work in the booming high-tech industries of ‘Silicon Valley’ – the shorthand term for the world-leading cluster of electronics and internet industries around San Jose and Palo Alto in the south Bay Area (Figure 1.1). Th is has fuelled the gentrification of many neighbourhoods, with spiralling house prices making the city increasingly unaffordable to many lower-income residents, leading to rising eviction rates from 2011 (Corbyn 2014). It is the resultant social tension that animates the protests against the commuter buses, laid on by Google and other technology companies to transport their workers to their offi ces in Silicon Valley.

Figure 1.1 The 13-county Bay Area Source: Schafran 2013: 668, Figure 1.

This collision between the process of economic development based on high-technology industries and the existing social fabric of the urban landscape is at the heart of the economic geography perspective developed in this book, serving to illustrate its main themes. The first of these themes is globalisation, which refers to the increased connections and linkages between people, firms and markets located in different places, manifested in flows of goods, services, money, information and people across national and continental borders. Here, the San Francisco Bay Area has attracted huge influxes of investment, becoming the leading centre of venture capital in the United States (US). At the same time, its booming housing market became a key outlet for the money generated on Wall Street prior to the financial crash of 2008 (Walker and Schafran 2015). In addition, economic growth has attracted large numbers of immigrants, stretching back over many decades, giving the Bay Area its characteristic social and racial diversity

The second theme is uneven development, whereby some countries and regions are more prosperous and economically powerful than others. The Bay Area is the richest major metropolitan area in the US on a per capita (by population) basis, irrespective of whether this is measured by income or wealth, containing more millionaires per capita than any other large metropolitan area (ibid.: 23). Yet, as the protests over gentrification highlight, it is also one of the most socially unequal, symbolising the wider trend of rising inequality in the US. There are millions of ordinary low- and middle-wage workers who are not employed in the high-tech sector in a region with an extremely high cost of living (ibid.). Over the past couple of decades, the spread of urbanisation and the rising costs of housing in San Francisco and the Inner Bay Area more generally have driven many of these groups to live further and further out in the Central Valley counties of San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Merced (Figure 1.1). This process is generally known as ex-urbanisation, representing an extension of the well-established trend of suburbanisation to previously free-standing areas. Yet, reflecting its intense housing boom, the Bay Area has been one of the regions worst affected by the post-2008 recession and foreclosure (housing repossession) crisis. This has been particularly concentrated in the new outer suburbs in the Central Valley, with the city of Stockton being declared bankrupt in 2013.

Third, the social tensions surrounding gentrification in the Bay Area also illustrate the theme of place, in terms of how particular areas become entangled in wider economic processes and the consequences of this for their social make-up and identity From the origins of San Francisco as the supply centre for the Californian gold boom of the late 1840s to the internet boom of the past couple of decades, the region has been transformed by successive waves of investment and immigration. The alternative, bohemian identity of San Francisco was established through the attraction of burgeoning counter-cultures associated with particular neighbourhoods such as hippies in Haight-Ashbury and the gay rights movement in the Castro. For some residents and critics, it is these identities and diverse neighbourhoods that are being threatened by gentrification as their social diversity gives way to the male-dominated, affluent monocultures associated with high-tech workers and entrepreneurs (Corbyn 2014). For others, however, the latter are simply the latest wave of incoming pioneers which the region will be able to accommodate in the same fashion as it accommodated previous migrants.

Reflect

Do you think that San Francisco will be able to accommodate the large-scale in-migration of high-tech workers and entrepreneurs whilst retaining its character and identity?

1.2 Key themes: globalisation, uneven development and place

In this section, we build on the Bay Area example to examine the three main themes of the book globalisation, uneven development and place - more fully. Our selection of these themes is informed by the basic geographical concepts of location and distance, scale, space and place.

• ➤ Location is perhaps the most basic geographical concept, referring to the geographical position of people and objects relative to one another (Coe et al. 2013), i.e. where things are. This is often represented by maps (see Figure 1.1), and systems of grid references have been developed to convey this information in a precise form. It is clearly related to distance which is the area or space between locations, for example cities such as Hong Kong and London. Overcoming what geographers have traditionally called the 'friction of distance (the effort and cost of moving objects and people between locations) requires time and money, for example the price of a long haul flight between London and Hong Kong. The greatly increased ability of economic actors such as Transnational corporations (TNCs) and banks to move money, goods, services, information and people over large distances as a result of the development in transport and communication technologies has been of great significance for the reorganisation of the international economy in recent decades.
• ➤ Scale refers to the different geographical levels of human activity, from the local to the regional, national and global (Figure 1.2). They are important to the definition and organisation of economies as indicated by the common use of terms such as the local economy, national economy and global economy by policy-makers, media commentators and citizens. It is important to see these different scales of economic organisation as overlapping and interconnected rather than viewing them as entirely separate.
• ➤ Space is an area of the earth's surface such as that contained within the boundaries of a particular region or country. It is perhaps the most abstract and difficult to grasp of the geographical concepts introduced here, and is best understood by being related to distance and place. Although a more general term, space is related to the more specific notion of distance and can also be expressed partly in terms of the area between two points (locations) in space and the time it takes to move between them. At the same time, it is often contrasted with place, particularly in terms of how spaces can be converted into places through human occupation and settlement
• ➤ Place refers to a particular area (space) to which a group of people have become attached, endowing it with human meaning and identity. This is evident in how the occupation of San Francisco neighbour-hoods by particular counter-cultural groups has defined their character and identity. The geographer Tim Cresswell (2013) illustrates the distinction between space and place by referring to an advertisement in a local furniture shop entitled 'turning space into place, reflecting how people use furniture and interior décor to make their houses meaningful, turning them from empty locations into personalised and comfortable homes. This domestic transformation of space into place is something with which we are all familiar, perhaps from decorating rooms in university halls of residence or shared flats.

Figure 1.2 Scales of geographical analysis Source: Castree et al. 2004: xvix.

1.2.1 Globalisation and connections across space

The first underlying theme which runs through this book is that economic activities are connected across space through flows of goods, money, information and people. The concept of (economic) globalisation can be defined as a process of economic integration on a global scale, creating increasingly close connections between people and firms located in different places. It is manifested in terms of increased flows of goods, services, money, information and people across national and continental borders. These flows are not new as trading relations between distant people and places involving the exchange of goods have existed throughout much of human history. The notion of globalisation, however, emphasises that the volume and scope of global flows has increased significantly in recent decades (Dicken 2015). Increased trade and economic interaction between distant places is dependent on technology in terms of the ease of movement and communication across space.

A new set of transport and communications technologies has emerged since the 1960s, including jet aircraft, shipping containerisation, the internet, email and mobile telephones. The effects of these 'space-shrinking technologies' have brought the world closer together, effectively reducing the distance between places in terms of the time and costs of movement and communication (Figure 1.3).

Figure 1.3 Ά shrinking world' Source: Dicken 2003: 92.

Similarly, the rise of new information and communications technologies (ICTs) such as the internet have made it possible for large volumes of information to be exchanged at a fraction of the previous cost, resulting in 'time-space compression'. The term was introduced by the geographer Dav...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface to the third edition
• Part 1 FOUNDATIONS
• Part 2 RESHAPING THE ECONOMIC LANDSCAPE: DYNAMICS AND OUTCOMES
• Part 3 REWORKING URBAN AND REGIONAL ECONOMIES
• Part 4 REORDERING ECONOMIC LIFE
• Part 5 PROSPECTS
• Glossary
• Index