Nichola Lowe

Which indicators explain metropolitan economic performance best? Traditional or creative class.

Problem: As Richard Floridas writings about the creative class garnered attention across the globe, planners and local government officials responded by enacting policies to attract and retain creative workers, often favoring spending for amenity and lifestyle attractions over more established economic development approaches. It is not clear, however, if the presence of these workers drives regional growth and development as effectively as more traditionally accepted place-based and institutional factors. Purpose: In this article we explore the relationships between the presence of the creative class and regional economic performance, contrasting measures of regional creative capacity with traditional competitiveness factors. Methods: We examine how Floridas creative class measures correlate with each other and with common indicators of economic performance for U.S. metropolitan areas. We also estimate multivariate regression models to compare the influence of Floridas measures to those of more traditional indicators of economic competitiveness on metropolitan job growth, income growth, and job instability. Results and conclusions: We find that differences in Floridas measures of creativity are not generally associated with differences in metropolitan economic performance. Indicators of human capital and industry composition perform as well or better than talent, tolerance, and technology in explaining metropolitan job and income growth and job instability. Takeaway for practice: Since we find measures derived from Floridas creative class hypotheses to be no more associated with positive economic outcomes than traditional competitiveness measures, we do not advocate replacing traditional economic development strategies with those based primarily on attracting the creative class. Programs supporting education, business creation, and industrial diversity are more likely to be effective tools for promoting economic well-being. Research support: We received support from the Center for the Study of the American South and the Office of Economic and Business Developments Program on Southern Politics, Media, and Public Life, both of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Inequality in the Creative City: Is There Still a Place for “Old-Fashioned” Institutions?:

Creative class theory, now a mainstay of local economic development policy, has a dark side: Cities that have a larger creative talent pool are also likely to have greater income inequality. Richard Florida, in acknowledging this disturbing trend, has assigned a new role to the creative class—helping low-wage service sector employees harness and express their creative energy and talent. In this article, the authors explore the complex relationship between creative workers and earnings inequality in the context of the broader urban economy. Drawing on this analysis and an expansive body of literature on urban income inequality, the authors propose an alternative set of policy actions aimed at mediating creativity and inequality through a deepening of traditional labor market institutions and legislative supports. In contrast to claims that these are obsolete solutions in the new economy, the authors argue they are necessary for the long-term sustainability of the creative economy.

Foreign Investment and the Global Geography of Production: Why the Mexican Consumer Electronics Industry Failed

Abstract Explanations of industrial development in late-developing countries have become narrowly focused on the capability of governments to promote, pressure, or punish nationally-owned firms. Often overlooked is the contribution of firms, both national and multinational, in propelling, coordinating, and determining the path and location of such development. This paper examines the conditions that led to the decline of Mexicos consumer electronics industry and presents new evidence to support a more complex account of the role of both industrial and state actors within this process. In contrast to the traditional market- or state-based theories, we argue that the decline of Mexicos consumer electronics industry largely resulted from its foreign investment regime, particularly the timing of investment and the geographical locations of local and foreign manufacturers, and the subsequent depth and quality of the relationships between these firms. The differences between Mexicos regime and that of Taiwan during the same period provide further evidence of the important role that foreign firms play in inserting local suppliers into the global production chain. We argue that Mexicos foreign investment regime and the resulting weak local-foreign ties, rather than inadequate state policy, sealed the fate of Mexicos once thriving domestic electronics industry.

Job Creation and the Knowledge Economy: Lessons From North Carolina's Life Science Manufacturing Initiative:

Knowledge-intensive industries are expected to provide long-term economic prosperity for their host regions. The question persists whether these industries can also generate quality, stable jobs for a wide range of workers in these regions, particularly those with limited academic training. This article examines North Carolinas effort to respond to this challenge by integrating workforce and economic development functions in an effort to anchor life science manufacturing establishments in the state. By coordinating training, recruitment, and research activities, state agencies are influencing the location and employment strategies of life sciences firms in ways that are helping to foster a more socially inclusive transition to the knowledge economy.

Skills on the Move: Rethinking the Relationship Between Human Capital and Immigrant Economic Mobility.

Studies of immigrant labor market incorporation in the unregulated sector of the U.S. economy either assume that immigrant workers are trapped in low-wage jobs because of low human capital, or paint a picture of blocked mobility because of exploitation and discrimination. In this article, we offer a third sociological alternative to understand processes of occupational mobility and skill learning. Drawing on work histories of 111 immigrant construction workers, we find that many immigrants are skilled; having come to their jobs with technical skill sets acquired in their home communities and their previous U.S. jobs. We further find that these less-educated immigrants, who rank low on traditional human capital attributes but high on work experience may circumvent exploitation and build mobility pathways through skill transference, on-the-job reskilling, and brincando (job jumping).

Hidden Talent: Tacit Skill Formation and Labor Market Incorporation of Latino Immigrants in the United States

This article examines informal training and skill development pathways of Latino immigrant construction workers in two different urban labor markets: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. We find that institutional differences across local labor markets not only shape how immigrants develop skills in specific places but also determine the localized obstacles they face in demonstrating and harnessing these skills for employment. To explain the role of local institutions in shaping differences in skill development experience and opportunities, we draw on the concept of tacit skill, a term that is rarely incorporated into studies of the labor market participation of less educated immigrants. We argue that innovative pathways that Latino immigrant workers have created to develop tacit skill can strengthen advocacy planning efforts aimed at improving employment opportunities and working conditions for marginalized workers, immigrant and nonimmigrant alike.

Beyond the Deal Using Industrial Recruitment as a Strategic Tool for Manufacturing Development

Industrial recruitment continues to play a significant role in the development of manufacturing industries in the U.S. South. Still, there are signs of shifting practice that not only emphasize a different set of regional advantages from earlier decades but equally help bolster those same advantages to anchor outside firms to the region. This article presents a case study of the strategic use of industrial recruitment to build out North Carolina’s biopharmaceutical manufacturing industry. This case study helps shed light on how recruitment practices can be designed and improved to support continued manufacturing job growth, but in ways that also limit the recruitment of potentially footloose establishments. As such, it presents an alternative perspective to recent studies of industrial recruitment that focus narrowly on efforts to limit or curb locational incentives for industry attraction.

The Rise and Fall of a Micro-Learning Region: Mexican Immigrants and Construction in Center-South Philadelphia

This paper documents the rise and fall of a micro-learning region in Philadelphia. The central actors in this region are undocumented Mexican immigrants who until recently were able to draw on the intensity of their workplace interactions and their heterodox knowledge to produce new and innovative building techniques in the citys residential construction. The new knowledge they developed was primarily tacit. More significantly, the learning practices through which immigrant workers developed skills and innovated new techniques were also heavily tacit. Because these practices were never made formal and were never made explicit, they remained invisible and difficult to defend. With the housing-market collapse and subsequent decline in housing renovation in the south-center region of Philadelphia, this tacit knowledge, and the practices that gave it shape and significance, are no longer easily accessible. We draw on this case to demonstrate the importance of access to the political and economic resources to turn learning practices into visible structured institutions that protect knowledge and skill. Whether or not the practices that support knowledge development are themselves made explicit can determine whether the knowledge they produce becomes an innovation that is recognized and adopted or whether it remains confined to a set of ephemeral practices that exist only so long as they are being enacted.

Consensus from Controversy: Cambridge's Biosafety Ordinance and the Anchoring of the Biotech Industry

ABSTRACT This paper provides an interpretative history of the early genesis of biotechnology in Cambridge and attempts to reconcile how the 1976 adoption of the most restrictive biosafety ordinance in the US created an unexpected business friendly environment that subsequently anchored the industry. The regulation was motivated by community concerns about the environmental effects of recombinant DNA and ignited a lively debate, characterized by an open process with activities to inform and involve citizens in decision-making.

Patchwork Intermediation: Challenges and Opportunities for Regionally Coordinated Workforce Development

Workforce intermediation has emerged as a potential tool for guiding labor market adjustment. This article presents an empirical test of workforce intermediation through a study of community colleges in North Carolina. It demonstrates the positive contribution of intermediary colleges in increasing access to jobs in the pharmaceutical and bioprocessing industries. It also considers the limits of this strategy when adopted by only a subset of colleges within a larger labor market region and, specifically, the challenges this creates for forging strong relationships with employers outside the jurisdictional boundaries of individual colleges. The authors conclude by considering policy options for extending the reach of intermediation across the regional labor market through greater intercollege coordination. The authors argue that coordination efforts in North Carolina, although still in their infancy, hold considerable promise for other college systems that are looking to position themselves as institutional leaders in intermediation.