Ian R. Gordon

Industrial Clusters: Complexes, Agglomeration and/ or Social Networks

The concept of industrial clusters has attracted much attention during the past decade, both as descriptive of an increasingly important phenomenon and as a basis for effective public intervention in the economies of lagging city-regions. However, there is much ambiguity in the way in which this concept is used, presenting an obstacle both to empirical testing and to realistic assessments of policy relevance. In this paper, we distinguish three ideal-typical models of processes which may underlie spatial concentrations of related activities, with very different implications both in terms of relevant evidence and the scope for promotional policies. Survey data for the London conurbation are used to explore the relation between concentration and different forms of linkage, with results which point to the dominance of pure agglomeration effects in this context at least.

Internationalisation and Urban Competition

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Industrial clusters, transactions costs and the institutional determinants of MNE location behaviour

This paper discusses the institutional and organizational assumptions underlying many of the currently popular notions of industrial clustering. By adopting a transactions costs perspective, we explain that there are three fundamentally different types of industrial cluster. We then discuss how the institutional differences between each of these clusters provide different possibilities for the location behaviour of the multiplant or multinational firm. Using two examples from the global semiconductor industry, we show that observations of industrial clusters must be interpreted very carefully when we are discussing multinational firms. The reason for this is that many simple clustering notions are predicated on assumptions which are often incompatible with multinational firms. The potential advantages of industrial clustering can only be understood when location strategies are considered with respect to the organizational and institutional logic of both the firm and the cluster.

Urban Size, Spatial Segregation and Inequality in Educational Outcomes

Assumptions about the role of neighbourhood effects are increasingly built into urban policies, particularly in relation to the role of spatial concentrations of disadvantage in perpetuating inequality and social exclusion. Nevertheless, hard evidence to underpin this assumption is still largely lacking. To help fill this gap, this paper focuses on the relationship between overall urban scale and the spatial scale of segregation, and on the implications of wider segregation for social outcomes at the individual level. Education is taken as a test case, because of the role of defined catchment areas in relation to school recruitment. Results show that: at given scales, larger city-regions are much more segregated; educational outcomes are only partly affected by neighbourhood effects for particular population characteristics; and greater individual inequality in more segregated areas is mainly due to positive impacts of segregation for more advantaged groups, rather than negative impacts for the most disadvantaged.

Localities and tourism

This paper develops a research agenda on the interaction between tourism as an activity and the character of the places in which it has been significant, with the aim of relating tourism studies more closely to developments in core areas of human geography. It focuses particularly on the various forms of externality generated by the industry and how their effects - on collective investment, innovation, governance, labour markets and the resort cycle - would be expected to vary between different types of tourist place. The research strategy that it proposes emphasizes the need for theoretically grounded comparative studies across a range of localities which are or have been involved in the industry. As pioneer postindustrial places it is argued that there are potential lessons to be drawn from an understanding of their experience for a much wider range of contemporary cities.

Family Structure, Educational Achievement and the Inner City

Current rates of success in the GCSE exams (taken at age 16 years in England and Wales) are particularly associated with location away from the inner cities. This paper uses aggregate data on success rates and socio-economic characteristics at the level of LEAs to assess the contributions of social, economic and schooling factors to this pattern of spatial disparity. Regression analyses indicate that the strongest influence is the spatial distribution of lone-parent families, and that rates of school absenteeism are an important intervening variable. The strength of the geographical relationship reflects the fact that British inner city areas are now distinguished more by the prevailing family structure than by their ethnic or class mix, or their level of unemployment. While high levels of (male) unemployment contribute to this situation, it is argued that more attention ought to be given to the social dimension of urban problems and policy than has been in the past 20 years.

Ambition, Human Capital Acquisition and the Metropolitan Escalator

Gordon I. R. Ambition, human capital acquisition and the metropolitan escalator, Regional Studies. This paper examines the relation between ambition, as a form of dynamic human capital, and the escalator role of high-order metropolitan regions, as originally identified by A. J. Fielding. It argues that occupational progression in such places particularly depends on concentrations both of people with more of this asset and of jobs offering preferential access to valued elements of tacit knowledge, interacting in thick, competitive labour markets. This is partially confirmed with analyses of British Household Panel Study (BHPS) data on long-term progression showing that only the more ambitious gain from residence in the extended London region, and that they only progress faster there.

Targeting a Leaky Bucket

A great deal of policy debate about unemployment seems to revolve around two caricatures of the labour market. On the one hand, there is an image of it as so beautifully integrated that its management can be safely left to the Treasury and the MPC. On the other hand, it is seen as a set of more or less disconnected sub-markets, with a great potential for local imbalances that require targeted intervention. At the present time, since over-full employment in parts of the of the South East coexists with double figure unemployment rates for much of inner London, as well as coalfield areas and the cores of northern cities, it’s clear that the first view can’t be right. So (the story goes) more localised forms of demand management must be needed, targeted at the worst areas. Following this sort of logic, the government has bowed to pressure to base its latest proposals for assisted areas (under regional policy!) on (un)employment rates for wards (with typical populations of below 10 thousand). Within England at least, the result is a distinctly ‘dotty’ map of assistance, limited only by the EU’s insistence on contiguous areas with a minimum population of 100 thousand. Though not clearly argued, part of the (Rogers) Urban Task Force’s advocacy of physical regeneration also seems to rest on employment gains to neighbourhoods with problems centred on high levels of joblessness.

London: Planning the ungovernable city

Abstract This paper relates the processes of strategic planning in London during the first decade of an executive Mayoral system to Doug Yates’ thesis about the ungovernability of major cities and London’s long history of conflict around metropolitan governance issues. Yates’ thesis only partially fits the London case because a separate lower tier of lower tier of borough authorities carries the main responsibilities for actual service provision. This London case, does, however, exemplify the proposition that without effective fiscal autonomy in planning for infrastructure provision, the need to manage diplomatic relations with higher levels of government (and other funders) can divert city strategies from those appropriate to the needs of the mass of their own constituents/businesses. In London as in other national capitals, this tension is intensified by a symbolic importance that inhibits central government from taking a detached stance in relation to priorities of the city administration. Examination of the experience of Mayoral Plans for London suggest that sheer complexity of relations and interdependences across a much extended, diverse and dynamic metropolitan region is also a major restraint on governability as far as strategic planning is concerned. An inability to face up to this complexity, particularly in relation to cross-border relations has – as much as the (diplomatic) obsession with the ‘global city’ priorities – so far proved a major obstacle to using Mayoral strategic planning as an effective means of steering change in the region, and addressing central issues affecting economic efficiency and residents’ quality of life.

How Far Do England's Second-Order Cities Emulate London as Human-Capital 'Escalators’?

In the urban resurgence accompanying the growth of the knowledge economy, second-order cities appear to be losing out to the principal city, especially where the latter is much larger and benefits from substantially greater agglomeration economies. The view that any city can make itself attractive to creative talent seems at odds with the idea of a country having just one ‘escalator region’ where the rate of career progression is much faster, especially for in-migrants. This paper takes the case of England, with its highly primate city-size distribution, and tests how its second- order cities (in size order, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Bristol, Sheffield, Liverpool, Nottingham and Leicester) compare with London as human- capital escalators. The analysis is based on the ONS Longitudinal Study of linked census records, primarily for 1991-2001, and uses one key indicator of upward social mobility, the transition from White Collar Non-core to White Collar Core. For non- migrants, the transition rates for all the second-order cities are found to fall well short of London’s. In only one case – Manchester – is the rate significantly higher than the average for other areas outside the Greater South East (GSE) and its performance is matched by the non-London part of the GSE. Those moving to the second-order cities during the decade experienced much stronger upward social mobility than their non-migrants. This ‘migrant premium’ was generally similar to that for London, suggesting that it results from people moving only after they have secured a better job. If so, second-order cities cannot rely on the speculative migration of talented people but need suitable jobs ready for them to access.