Thomas A. Hutton

The New Economy of the inner city

Abstract New industry clusters within the inner city constitute important features of the spatiality of the New Economy, and include computer graphics and imaging, software design, and multimedia industries (as well as technologically “retooled” industries such as architecture and graphic design). This article addresses key developmental factors (emphasising the importance of “space and place”) shaping the location and morphology of these clusters, informed by field work in London, San Francisco, Vancouver, and Singapore, as well as by recent conceptual contributions from Allen Scott, Richard Florida, and Andy Pratt, among others. The analysis demonstrates that these new industry clusters act as significant agents of urban change in the 21st century, with implications for the reassertion of production in the inner city, for the reconfiguration of the urban space-economy, and for the regeneration of local communities. New Economy industries are thus central to the reshaping of the urban core, as well as to larger processes of socioeconomic change within the metropolis as a whole. But the expansion of these dynamic new industrial clusters is also associated with a range of more problematic (as well as broadly favourable) social and environmental impacts, and presents distinctive challenges for local planning and for urban theory.

Trajectories of the New Economy: Regeneration and Dislocation in the Inner City

1800s to the mid 20th century. While the precise mix of industry sectors varies from place to place, we can observe in many cities and sites clusters of ‘hybridised’ industries and fi rms, including creative, technology-intensive new economy industries (software, multimedia, video production and post-production), as well as established industries (architecture, industrial design, graphic design, advertising) which have been transformed by new production and telecommunications technologies. These advanced industry clusters and sites demonstrate the value of the inner city as a unique zone of experimentation within the metropolis. Inner-city new economy sites represent in many cases exemplars of what Kevin Morgan describes as ‘territorial innovation systems’ (Morgan, 2004). Innovation across a diverse range of industries is lubricated by the dense networks of suppliers, clients, institutions and talent concentrated within the metropolitan core. Examples of innovation processes conducted by fi rms and institutions in the core include: the design and development of new ‘cultural products’ (services as well as goods), Trajectories of the New Economy: Regeneration and Dislocation in the Inner City

Situating the New Economy: Contingencies of Regeneration and Dislocation in Vancouver's Inner City

The purpose of this paper is to make an argument about the importance of geographical context and contingency in the emergence of the new economy within the inner city. Using a case study of Vancouver, it is suggested, first, that its new economy has emerged precisely out of the peculiar trajectory of the city and is bound up with a staples economy, branch plant corporate offices, transnationalism, and mega-project orientation. Secondly, to illustrate the importance of situation and site, the paper focuses on two of Vancouvers inner-city locales: Yaletown, on the margins of the Downtown South, a former industrial and warehousing district now regarded as the epicentre of Vancouvers new economy; and Victory Square, the former commercial heart of the early Vancouver, for many years experiencing disinvestment and decline, but now on the cusp of a major revitalisation which threatens to displace long-established social cohorts.

Service industries, globalization, and urban restructuring within the Asia-Pacific: new development trajectories and planning responses

Abstract While industralization programmes have been central to the development of Asia-Pacific states and city-regions over the past half-century, service industries are increasingly important as instruments of urban growth and change. The purpose of this paper is to establish service industries as increasingly significant aspects of urban development within the Asia-Pacific, and to propose a conceptual and analytical framework for scholarly investigation within this important research domain. To this end the paper explores a sequence of related themes and issues, concerning the larger developmental implications of urban services growth (or tertiarization), the facets of urban transformation associated with tertiarization, and a preliminary typology of urban service functions which acknowledges the rich diversity of service vocations and stages of development within the Asia-Pacific. The paper concludes that “advanced services”—specialized, intermediate service industries, advanced-technology services, and creative service industries—will be quite crucial to the development of city-regions within the Asia-Pacific, with respect to employment growth and human capital formation, to the urban economic (or export) base, to the operation of flexible production systems, and to competitive advantage. The development of these urban service poles will require innovative policy commitments and regulatory adjustments, as will the multi-centred specialized urban service corridors which function as engines of regional economic growth, and which provide platforms for national modernization and responses to the pressures (and opportunities) of globalization. To date, urban and regional development strategies for service industries within the Asia-Pacific have privileged globalization, industrial restructuring, and modernization aims, but there is also an encouraging record of more progressive planning experimentation in some jurisdictions, incorporating principles of sustainability and co-operative development. There is also increasing interest in policies to support cultural and creative industries among Asia-Pacific city-regions, informed by some recent urban policy experimentation in this domain. These experiences can offer models for further policy and programmatic innovation in the 21st century, as service industries continue to play larger roles in urban and regional development within the Asia-Pacific.

Thinking Metropolis: From the ‘Livable Region’ to the ‘Sustainable Metropolis’ in Vancouver

At the metropolitan scale, the Greater Vancouver Regional District has earned acclaim for its commitments to preserving green spaces, its attention to metropolitan labour markets and employment, investments in rapid transit and the introduction of ‘compact’ and ‘complete’ communities. Recently, the regional governance authority was rebranded to ‘Metro Vancouver’, connoting a more integrative policy framework, as well as a cosmopolitan/transnational imagery; and entailing the insertion of sustainable development into planning discourses. This essay offers a critical perspective on Vancouvers planning record, and a commentary on prospects for advancing the ‘metropolitan consciousness’ required to address the developmental exigencies of the twenty-first-century city-region.

Service industries and Asia-Pacific cities : new development trajectories

Section 1: Services and Development in the Asia-Pacific-Theory and Context Section 2: Services and Urban Development in the Asia-Pacific: Sectoral Perspectives Section 3: Services and Urban Development in the Asia-Pacific: City Case-Studies. Bibliography. Index

Contours of the Post-Staples State: The Reconstruction of Political Economy and Social Identity in 21st Century Canada

Abstract In this essay I will be advancing an argument that the national development trajectory is in transition from a “mature staples” phase to a “post-staples” era, signifying not only a new phase of industrial restructuring, but also profound shifts in social development and the structures and operations of the state. This emergent development trajectory is shaped by a mélange of influences which includes new rounds of industrial restructuring, the repositioning of cities and settlements within the Canadian urban hierarchy and (more decisively) international networks, and influential social movements (including multiculturalism and environmentalism). My notion of a “post-staples” state – is not intended as an “absolute”, as even episodes of quite fundamental and far-teaching industrial and socioeconomic change necessarily encompass a sublation of conditions, both contemporary and historical, rather than a complete and totalising break with the past. Rather, these concepts represent ventures in capturing important new phases of economic change, together with the complex social, cultural, spatial and political causalities and outcomes that comprise basic shifts in development mode. It is important to recognise, however, that this “post-staples” political economy is not a “non-staples” one. That is, many regions of the country remain at the stage of a “mature” staples political economy functioning under a Ricardian state system. Moreover, despite the many efforts of Canadian governments to promote “knowledge-based” industries such as software and computer games which have few, if any, material inputs, most of the industries and activities towards which knowledge has been directed in Canada, are classic staples ones such as agriculture (genetically-modified foods), forestry (new pulp and paper techniques, biologically-enhanced silviculture), fisheries (aquaculture) mines (enhanced reclamation) and energy (hydrogen fuels, renewables, offshore drilling and tar sands production. The Post-staples direction of Canadas political economy then, is complex and nuanced but represents elements of continuity with earlier stages in Canadas economic history, not a decisive break with the past.

Reconfiguring the Governance Structures of the Twenty-first-century City-region: Observations and Conclusions

In this special theme issue of International Planning Studies, we and our international colleagues have presented five papers that elucidate the present state of institutionalized regionalisms in five medium-sized city-regions – Milan, Stuttgart, Portland, Vancouver and Amsterdam – as well as addressing the condition of, and potential for, progressive metropolitan consciousness in these regions. We have gained insights into the different trajectories of the cities with respect to their attempts to reconfigure their metropolitan governance structures. In this concluding essay we will generate some instructive insights into the defining qualities of metropolitan planning in the case-study city-regions and identify complements, trade-offs and conflicts. We will draw out wider implications of the case studies for urban scholarship and for policy innovation and development.

Trouble in paradise: resilience and Vancouver’s second life in the “new economy”

Resilience is an increasingly important concept within urban studies, economic geography, and evolutionary economics for measuring the capacity of city-regions to respond to economic shocks. In this article, we provide a sympathetic critique of the resilience metaphor in urban studies, which we explicate through an analysis of the recent history of the Vancouver economy. On the surface, Vancouver seemingly showed resilience when it overcame the abrupt decline of its resource-based economy in the 1980s, and established an alternative flourishing “new economy” by the 1990s. But over the last five years, the key local “creative” industries such as video game development and film production have suffered, with a number of large firms leaving Vancouver, and industry employment declining sharply. Drawing on more than 40 interviews conducted over a five-year period with members of the local video game community, our paper documents the rise and more recent decline of Vancouver’s “new economy” sector. Our research raises questions about the value of the resilience metaphor in urban studies and highlights the difficulties facing city-regions reliant on highly mobile “new economy” industries.