Sanjoy Chakravorty

Industrial Location and Spatial Inequality: Theory and Evidence from India

The authors argue that spatial inequality of industry location is a primary cause of spatial income inequality in developing nations. Their study focuses on understanding the process of spatial industrial variation: identifying the spatial factors that have cost implications for firms, and the factors that influence the location decisions of new industrial units. The analysis has two parts. First the authors examine the contribution of economic geography factors to the cost structure of firms in eight industry sectors and show that local industrial diversity is the one factor with significant and substantial cost-reducing effects. They then show that new private sector industrial investments in India are biased toward existing industrial and coastal districts, whereas state industrial investments (in deep decline after structural reforms) are far less biased toward such districts. The authors conclude that structural reforms lead to increased spatial inequality in industrialization, and therefore, income.

Industrial location in post-reform India: patterns of inter-regional divergence and intra-regional convergence

Where do new industrial investments locate, and what factors drive the industrial location decisions? Do these investments follow the model of ‘divergence followed by convergence’ suggested by the cumulative causation, agglomeration economies, and transport-costs approaches? These questions are examined with district-level data from India for the pre- and post-reform periods using: first, tables and maps of concentration and clustering, aggregated for all industry and disaggregated into five sectors (Heavy Industries, Chemicals and Petroleum, Textiles, Agribusiness, and Utilities), and second, logistic and OLS/Heckman selection regression models for these six elements. The data provide solid evidence both of inter-regional divergence and intra-regional convergence, and suggest that ‘concentrated decentralisation’ is the appropriate framework for understanding industrial location in post-reform India.

Urban Inequality Revisited: The Determinants of Income Distribution in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

Urban size and growth rates have been the focus in the analysis of variation in income inequality among U.S. metropolises. Here, the author builds upon elements identified in the literature to examine 1990 census data for the total, white, and black populations. The regression results indicate that the causal structure of inequality has changed and that the determinants of intraracial inequality are different. The author argues that now the most significant determinants relate to local employment, and social and demographic conditions, reflecting a fundamental transformation from the importance of income level, industry mix, and race.

Do Localization Economies Matter in Cluster Formation? Questioning the Conventional Wisdom with Data from Indian Metropolises

The large and growing literature on industrial clustering suggests that firms seek locations that provide localization economies (benefits from having common buyers and suppliers, a specialized or skilled labor pool, and informal knowledge transfers). This study of manufacturing industry clusters in three Indian metropolises suggests instead that industry location decisions are guided by market imperfections, specifically rigidities in the land market caused by state action (segregationist or environmental policies, the absence of exit policies, and activist industrial promotion policies). For the investigation the authors use geographically disaggregated industry location and size data from Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai, to analyze eight industrial sectors (food and beverages, textiles, leather, printing and publishing, chemicals, metals, machinery, and electrical and electronics). The authors test for evidence of global and local clustering and distinguish between and test for coclustering and colocation of industries. The results are indicative rather than absolute and suggest that for location decisions general urbanization economies are more important than are localization economies.

Transfer of Planning Technology and Local Political Economy: A Retrospective Analysis of Calcutta's Planning

Abstract Calcuttas planning experience after independence is noteworthy for two reasons: first, it included an unprecedented effort at transferring western planning technology (mainly through the Ford Foundation) to a Third World city; second, it serves as a graphic example of how the larger picture of a citys future is drawn by the forces of politics and economics. Using Calcuttas story as the background, this paper examines the issues involved in transfer of planning technology (diffusion, permanence, etc.), and the overwhelming importance of the political economy of the receiving region in determining the acceptance or rejection of the transfer, and in shaping subsequent urban development.

Metropolitan Industrial Clusters: Patterns and Processes

Where do industries locate within a metropolitan area? Do different industrial sectors have different patterns of location/clustering? Can these patterns be understood with reference to industry characteristics? What is the geographical relationship between clusters of different types of industry? To what extent do localization economies influence the clustering process? These questions are investigated with geographically disaggregated industry location and size data from Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai. Chakravorty, Koo, and Lall analyze eight industrial sectors (food/beverages, textiles, leather, printing/publishing, chemicals, metals, machinery, and electrical/electronics) for evidence of global and local clustering, and distinguish between and test for co-clustering and co-location of industries. The results suggest an evolutionary model of industry location in mixed rather than specialized industrial districts. There is little evidence of localization economies from labor markets or buyer-supplier networks. The authors suggest that land use policy is the key variable influencing the intra-metropolitan spatial distribution of industry.

Urban development in the global periphery: The consequences of economic and ideological globalization

Globalization has two elements: economic globalization refers to the integration of global markets, while ideological globalization refers to the political ideas that underlie the spread of markets, trade, and democracy. Economic globalization is limited in its reach in the developing world: some cities have done well; some, despite not being globalized, have regional importance; and large regions and numerous cities have been bypassed. Ideological globalization, on the other hand, is far more widespread from an intellectual and a policy perspective. The tenets of ideological globalization are likely to work further to the relative detriment of the cities/regions in the global periphery. This is a “cumulative causation” argument that raises questions about the development prospects of peripheral regions.

Land acquisition in India: The political-economy of changing the law

ABSTRACT This article examines the contentious issue of land acquisition in India, focusing on the deeply regressive system in operation from independence to the mid-2000s that caused wipeouts for millions of families, the flash of resistance to acquisitions starting around 2006-2007, the creation of a new law in 2013 to enhance justice and rights, and an attempt in 2014-2015 to amend that new law. The central questions that arise from this process are: why did a regressive system last so long? and, why did it die in the last decade? These are best answered in a political-economy framework in which increasing political competition has challenged the electoral mathematics of ‘majoritarianism’ and increased the viability of ‘wedge issue’ politics.

Inherited Land: The Evolution of Land Markets and Rights Before Independence

Land is the most important resource in India and, as a result, always in contention. This chapter takes a long-term view of land markets and land rights—as they evolved through pre-colonial and colonial regimes (with an emphasis on the latter)—to contextualize some of the fundamental struggles over land in independent India. The maximization of land revenue was the primary objective of all pre-independence states, from the Mughals and Marathas to the East India Company and British Crown regimes. There were significant regional variations in the operationalization of these policies—from the more sustainable raiyatwari system used in south and west India to the harsher and more extractive zamindari system used in the east and north—variations that influence agriculture, urbanization, and the political economies of these regions until today. Independent India thus inherited a complex and geographically diverse system of land markets, rights, and fragmentations, created through several centuries of peasant domination and misery, and is still engaged in the task of mitigating and coming to terms with that inheritance.

Colonial and Post-Colonial Geographies of India: Saraswati Raju, M. Satish Kumar, and Stuart Corbridge, eds. New Delhi: Sage, 2006. 368 pp., maps, diagrams, photos, notes, and index.

television company easily come to my mind—Tuan sees them mainly as works of art that have been made possible by the advances in materials science and engineering and that are sensitive to fashion and technological innovation. As products of fashion and changing technology, they no longer spell permanence (p. 40). One might also ask for whom are such unusual eye-catching architectural forms designed? What purposes do they serve? What is their symbolism? What was on the mind of China’s top leaders who approved them? I wish Tuan had commented on these and related questions. In his speech to university faculty and students in Beijing on humanistic geography (pp. 52–64), which Tuan sees as being characterized by the tendency to extract meanings from the sources of language, including metaphors and similes, he expounded on three themes: the felt quality of environment (environment can be “felt” by our five senses), the psychology of power (the dark desire of humans to dominate nature, pets, and weaker people for the sake of exercising power for pleasure), and the relationship between the quality of material setting and the quality of life (there is no easy answer). These three themes “all show a deep-seated desire to understand the complexity and subtlety of human experience” (p. 64). The topic of the third speech was “What if, in human geography, the objects of our study are our intellectual peers?” (pp. 79–89). Surprisingly, the answer Tuan provides is that, in advanced dynamic societies such as Silicon Valley, the researcher (say, a human geographer or anthropologist) has no intellectual advantage over the researched and that he or she cannot really offer any truly new way of looking at the world unknown to the locals (p. 89). He wonders whether we should regret or rejoice about this condition of “true equality” where the researcher and the researched are intellectual equals. On the other hand, “[w]e geographers have no trouble finding places that are backward compared to our own, and we continue to offer them not only practical advice but also fresh ways of thinking and analysis” (p. 90). Here I feel a bit uneasy, as this particular scenario begs the question of whether humanistic geography is only appropriate for the study of premodern and less advanced societies about which Tuan provides ample examples in the speech. As modern life is as much a form of human experience as earlier and less sophisticated ways of life elsewhere in the world, and as the value of humanistic geography lies in its ability to offer humanist perspectives to better “understand the complexity and subtlety of human experience” (p. 64; in general, I would assume), it seems odd that Tuan has offered such a restrictive view of the scope of research for humanistic geographers. I would certainly hope that humanistic geography can offer fresh insights to better understand the world without temporal and spatial constraints. China geographers expecting to find Tuan’s views on China’s dramatic changes in the post-1978 era of reform will be disappointed because he chose not to focus on them. The book is not so much about China as about Tuan’s complex emotional ties with his native land elicited by his “coming home” to it. The ties seem to be flaccid, partial, vacillating, and ambivalent. However, geographers interested in humanistic geography should read the book for pleasure as well as for insights. This book can be considered a sequel to Tuan’s autobiography published in 1999. Coming Home to China both adds to the literature on humanistic geography and reveals more about the life and thoughts of one of its leading architects.