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Government support plays a crucial role in enhancing regional innovation capabilities and creating distinctive innovation clusters. Using the innovation competitiveness indicators of the 31 provinces in China, this paper examines the provincial government collaboration and innovation competitiveness values through Super‐SBM data envelopment analysis and analytic hierarchy process. Then, the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is employed to relate government collaboration to innovation competition and cooperation among provinces in hope of exploring the developmental trends of innovation cluster optimization. Research findings show that only 25.8% of the provincial government support proves effective for regional innovation, and the competitiveness values of the provinces are generally low and need to be improved. By incorporating the role of government support into the innovation competition and cooperation among provinces, there has been a tendency of innovation activities clustering in innovative regions and three major clusters have formed. The trend of clustering will continue to evolve outwards so that the overall innovation level of China would be enhanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Desmet, Gumpert, and Ortίn have analyzed regional development using the Ricardian model or the Heckscher–Ohlin theorem. However, aspects such as consideration of combined wages, substitution elasticities, marginal costs, fixed costs, and number of companies were completely ignored. This study investigates the underdevelopment of regions in light of Krugman's core–peripheral model. The extension of the model is intended to analyze the aspects that have so far been ignored and their influence on the benefits of the two regions. The following aspects characterize the model. Two regions with two sectors are considered for the model. The regions are characterized by different technological equipment. The first region is industrial. The second region has an agricultural character. When a new technology is available, both regions can benefit under certain conditions. The financial transfers lead to a convergence of wages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the behavior and evaluates the competitiveness factors in the province of Villa Clara, supporting the analysis methodology Diamond Porter (1990), the expert method and the study of theoretical and conceptual foundations of competitiveness. The discussion of the results showed the existence of economic, political and social rights that need to be managed in order to contribute to the increased competitiveness in the country through the development of projects, mainly in the productive sectors and in particular in the traditional products and the sugar industry, with the aim of rescuing. Another sector that also contributes to the increase of competitiveness in the territory is the tourism industry, focusing on the territory that the multiplier effect, to enhance the linkage with other sectors, and strengthening the local production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

T his paper analyzes the economic vulnerability and economic resilience of Baja California, Mexico, in the context of the 2007 international financial crisis. A methodological approach is proposed to develop vulnerability and resilience indexes, and the region's economic performance from 2003 to 2014 is compared to the other entities. Economic performance is measured by unbundling the SGDP into its cyclical and non-cyclical components (trend). In conclusion, when faced with an external shock, Baja California shows economic vulnerability but also strong economic resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional economic adaptability is a classical topic in economic geography. Studying the fall and necessary restructuring and adaptability of regional economies has a long tradition in Europe, whereas the non-Western world is a blind spot particularly concerning the use of newer evolutionary theoretical concepts in analysing and explaining regional economic adaptability. The aim of this special issue is therefore to put an evolutionary perspective on industrial dynamics and regional economic adaptability in non-Western countries, and by doing that to contribute to theorising back from non-Western countries to mainly Western concepts on regional economic adaptability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been increasing concern about the roles of industrial variety, particularly related and unrelated variety, in adaptive response of regional economies to recessionary shock. Using South Korean regional manufacturing data around the 1997 Asian financial crisis, this paper investigates how differently related and unrelated variety affect intrasectoral and intersectoral structural change in regional economy. The empirical findings reveal that regions with higher related variety adapt to recessionary shock mainly through intrasectoral structural change, but that related variety diminishes the opportunity for regional economies to pursue intersectoral reorganization. However, unrelated variety makes up for this negative effect as it increases intersectoral structural change. This study sheds light on the complementary roles of related and unrelated variety in regional adaptability and path creation or diversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarly work has enhanced our understanding of how new path development activities are enabled or constrained by ‘regional environments’, made up of pre-existing industrial structures, knowledge organizations, support structures and institutional configurations. This paper moves beyond overly static views on regional environments. We develop a dynamic perspective by analysing conceptually and empirically how a constraining environment can be transformed into one that enables the development of new growth paths. The paper offers a typology of various modes of change, including layering, adaptation and novel application that are used by key actors to ‘manipulate’ the regional support structures to facilitate new regional industrial path development. The conceptual framework is applied to a case study of the digital games industry in the region of Scania, southern Sweden. Our findings suggest that the creation of a more enabling environment for the growth of the digital games industry has been the outcome of multi-scalar processes and combinations of various modes of change employed by a few key individuals operating in the newly emerging path. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The importance of the development of different transport infrastructures in the harmonious growth of the national and regional economy is undeniable. In this context, the tertiary network plays a fundamental role, as it constitutes the most extensive transport infrastructure in the national territory. Its operation at optimum levels accelerates the economic growth of the rural population, allows the articulation of rural production centers with urban collection centers and their efficient distribution; Strengthens the presence of the State in the territory, promotes the provision of public services, health, safety and education. However, this transport infrastructure must integrate the production chains and combine the different modes of transport available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses issues related to regional economic organizational change, critical junctures and literatures associated with them. It also discusses all these things in the perspective of structural, functional, cognitive, social and institutional factors. It also discusses the need for regional economic organizations to undertake conventional security tasks and discusses opportunities and constraints faced by regional decision makers on conventional security threat.

Regional (economic) resilience and resilient thinking have gained considerable attention in recent years. My aim with this work is to throw light on some of the underlying aspects of regional economic resilience and resilient thinking. In the current study I give an overview of the notion, key concepts, main empirical results and planning tasks concerning regional (economic) resilience as well as outlining some of the criticisms. Finally, I provide some suggestions for studies in resilience and resilient thinking for future research agendas. The main results of the study is my own belief in the concept of regional economic resilience, and an overview and comparison of regional (economic) resilience literature and empirics that lead me to highlight some of the shortcomings of the research topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Territorial capital has gained considerable attention in the past few years. The aim with this work is to throw light on some underlying aspects of territorial capital research. The study focuses on the theoretical and empirical issues of territorial capital and highlights some critical remarks related to the topic. On the one hand, the focus of the study is on the comparison of concepts and approaches in connection with territorial capital; then an in-depth look is taken at “capital frameworks” related to the research field. On the other hand, a comprehensive overview is presented of empirical investigations by comparing the applied methods, dimensions and variables of territorial capital. An argument is also made for a critical assessment concerning the topic with regard to the sense and function of territorial capital in regional economics and local economic development and highlights some further dilemmas concerning the “properties of capital” and “territorial capital paradigm”. Finally, some suggestions are provided for the future of territorial capital analysis. The main result of the study is an own belief in the concept of territorial capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to enunciate those different ways of looking and perspectives that try to explain the importance of the regional dimension development into a context of global transformations of the economy, in order to understand and analyze the particular cases and processes that occur around the global regional spaces and have influence in territorial organization. For this purpose I consider as startup the structural changes of the world economical processes from the last decades of the XXth century that forced the searching of new alternatives for local and regional development with new adjusted models according to world's economical patterns. I identify two fundamental aspects of the regional economic development from these theoretical points of view: on one side, exist the importance of the territorial dimension and, on the other hand, we have the endogenous process criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we consider the implications of assemblage as an analytical framework in the context of regional economic planning, drawing on Deleuze and Guattari's concept of territoriality to examine the efforts to create temporal stability in the emergent regional economy. We focus on the reterritorialisation of Central Otago through the district council's destination management project centred on the collective branding of the region as ' A World of Difference'. The implementation of this programme contends with the diverse, incongruent boundaries of emergent tourism activities. The paper, thus, addresses the potential for state initiatives to manage uncertain and ephemeral assemblages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is the result of a research project 'A Foresight Analysis of a Region for Economic Planning - Boyacá's Industrial Corridor towards 2019'. The theoretical foundations of the project were based on Territorial Foresight. The methodology was designed considering the following aspects - the positioning of the region considering the global, national and regional contexts; key trends and technologies that would influence the region and its productive sectors; an identification and prioritization of strategic variables for the regions territorial development system. On the basis of these aspects, four alternate scenarios of possible futures were developed and one of them was identified as a desired future and a set of seven strategies were identified and are being implemented with a view to actualizing the desired future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EU rural policies have, in the past, used the twin concepts of disparity and diversity in alternative ways but have never really acknowledged the different assumptions that underlie them in terms of rural development and policy implementation. This, it is argued here, is the result of three different processes. The first is that by which scientific knowledge passes through several mediation stages as concepts that are adopted by policymakers leading to the subsequent modification of their original meaning. The second is that by which European Union ( EU) rural policies are hosted in a variety of different policy areas for which they are not the main concern, leading to a degree of ambiguity that may nevertheless serve a political purpose. The third is that experience has shown that even though the concept of diversity might initially appear more suited to addressing the different needs of European rural areas in modern advanced economies, it has nevertheless proved particularly difficult and costly to implement. As a consequence, the simpler concept of disparity, with its one-size-fits-all approach, has maintained its dominance as a policy concept; a dominance that has been considerably reinforced over the last decade. In the first section of the article the concepts of diversity and disparity are analysed and contrasted in their assumptions and policy implications. This is followed by an assessment of how these concepts are employed in EU rural policy. The final section discusses the governance implications of both concepts in rural policy and their link to the wider agenda of EU policies today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Islands, especially smaller ones, are characterized by discontinuity of space and are considered as some of the least accessible areas. In this paper, we seek to shed light on the accessibility problems that islands face from the point of view of island residents. This shift in emphasis considers additional aspects to accessibility that include the availability of connections to access services required to cover the needs of island residents and the different destinations where these may be available, and the time that one may have to spend to get to these destinations in order to use these services. An alternative measure of accessibility is proposed, based on the time required to travel; this is then applied to three different Greek islands in the Aegean Sea. The accessibility of the residents of these islands to selected services is compared with that of settlements in continental Greece of similar population and distance to the capital Athens. The findings clearly demonstrate the adversities that island residents have to face, especially for smaller islands, where accessing selected services may require as many as four destinations, with virtual distances 4 to 6 times longer than 'real distances'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The knowledge and innovation have the important role of regional economics at present. It can be said that innovation are the cornerstone of economic growth. Each region is trying to encourage innovation by certain tools. There is no universal access, how to effectively create a suitable environment for the emergence and spread of innovation. In this context, regional innovation systems were developed and regions are become centers of innovation. Innovation arises at the regional level through regional innovation network of innovative companies, and local industrial clusters with significant contributions from academic institutions in the region. This paper will focus on evaluation of the usefulness of the funds spent on the creation of regional innovation system in the South Moravian region. To evaluated CBA - Cost Benefit Analysis method was chosen. The paper of course includes graphical interpretation of results. Input data for the application of the CBA are obtained from public statistical yearbooks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses regional policy and economic development in the European Union (EU), with a focus on how regional development in subnational regions of the EU can be applied to potential integration and regionalism within Asian countries. Topics include regional policy for the redistribution of resources among countries in Asia; regional economic integration in Asia and Europe; and comparative studies on international integration in Europe and Asia.

In this commentary, I endorse Ron Martin's thoughtful rethinking of the concept of path dependence in a successful attempt to improve our understanding of regional economic evolution. I take issue, however, with his quick dismissal of Marxist geographical political economy as an important reference point for understanding the evolution of the economic landscape. Taking inspiration from a spatialized reading of the regulationist perspective on socioeconomic development, I argue that Marxist geographical political economy is a key reference point for any theory of regional development because it points to the importance of capital accumulation, state restructuring and collective agency in shaping economic evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on planning literature which include approaches to empirical work in regional economics, understanding the barriers to social adaptation, and management of large city regions.

This paper explores the intergenerational education mobility from a regional perspective. The key question is in which cities and regions is there more independence between the education of parents and offsprings? Differences between migrants and non-migrants are also studied. Seven mobility indexes and two different surveys are used. Results are sensitive to the index, for that reason mobility studies must use several indexes. Some indexes are more likely to be reliable. According to these indexes, there was higher mobility where average education levels improved the most. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the evolution of Ukraine's space-economy from 1990 to 2009, paying particular attention to comparative regional economic performance during the country's expansionary phase from 1999 to 2008. This shows that Ukraine inherited from the Imperial and Soviet eras a space-economy that was amongst the most unbalanced in Europe. Furthermore post-Soviet regional trajectories intensified these territorial imbalances. The paper argues that these trajectories are linked to a wider political economy and especially to shifts in underlying development models and the characteristics of state power. The Orange Revolution marked a significant switch away from export-led industrial growth, which involved national accumulation towards a credit-fuelled consumption model that was reliant on importing foreign capital. The paper identifies three major types of specialized regional economy that persisted despite the change in development model. Nonetheless, their relative performance and contribution to national growth were affected by the shift in model. Centripetal tendencies were reinforced, which increased regional divergence. The paper argues that the Ukrainian space-economy is best understood as a series of historically rooted and relatively geographically bounded regional economies that are increasingly functionally integrated yet externally oriented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the foreign investment decision as a response to the economic liberalization in Chile, using data obtained from a survey of 102 managers. I argue that the knowledge on strategies in response to reforms was a source of competitive advantage for Chilean firms, which enables them to successfully invest in other Latin American countries that were undertaking promarket reforms similar to the ones Chile did in the previous decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The three general approaches to empirical work in economics are structural, experimentalist, and descriptive. This paper provides an overview of how empirical work in regional economics fits into these three categories. In particular, I examine a single issue in the field, the nature of agglomeration benefits and the productivity gains from agglomeration, and analyze the advantages and drawbacks of following each of these three empirical approaches. I also discuss potentially fruitful ways empirical work in regional economics might advance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a history of regional economic models being patterned after their national counterparts, modern macroeconomic methodology has yet to be fully embraced by regional scientists. In this paper, I argue that modern macroeconomic methodology has much to offer the field of regional economic modeling. For one, the empirical strategies used in implementing dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models provide insights into how regional computable general equilibrium models could be better parameterized and empirically verified. In addition, the structural macroeconomic approach more generally could be used to construct structural regional policy analysis models for use as alternatives to traditional regional models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does the research about rural economies in developed countries compare to urban/regional economics? What can the new generation contribute? This paper briefly reviews modern research concerning rural development in one country, the U.S., and reports indicators of U.S. rural distress. It examines the market forces and market failures that cause rural distress and that may limit the applicability of existing urban/regional theories to rural problems. A feast of uniquely rural issues that require—and should inspire—theoretical innovations in rural, urban, regional, and spatial economics are identified and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkey's step-by-step embedding in the institutional and policy environment of the EU is currently compelling the country to establish a fitting structure of regional governance. A key element in this structure is the creation of regions at the NUTS-II level which will be equipped with Regional Development Agencies (RDAs). Yet the present political and economic situation in Turkey throws some doubt on the scope and future for RDA development. To what extent will the central state be able and willing to devolve authority and resources to the local level? And to what extent do regional institutional and business settings hold fertile ground for RDA development? The article will address these questions, first, by focusing on the broader political-institutional context of region and RDA formation; and, second, through a detailed case-study of one regional setting, namely Istanbul. The outcomes indeed point to a fragile basis for RDA development from both political and economic perspectives. However, they also help identify certain areas where RDAs, in a more bottom-up way, could help to fill serious gaps in the fabric of regional economic development, and may find external resources to do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the attractiveness of 61 NUTS-2 EU regions as FDI locations, with an emphasis on the Austrian regions and the border regions in the neighbouring countries. To this end, the paper proposes a novel benchmarking methodology, which is based on the solution of a non-linear and non-convex optimisation problem and allows for the simultaneous evaluation of all indicators. Based on identical vectors of indicator weights for all regions under scrutiny in two cases and on region-specific vectors in a third case, we construct three different indices of location attractiveness. These differ from each other in terms of the underlying notion of optimality. Intervention-induced rank-engineering is ruled out since all indicator weights are determined endogenously jointly with the algorithmic solution to the optimisation problem. The empirical analysis conducted hereafter, drawing upon output-oriented indicators, demonstrates the applicability of the methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formally launched on 30 January 2006, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy (CSME) is, like many other regional economic initiatives, designed to create an economic space in which the uninhibited flow of goods, capital and skills across the borders of member states is anticipated to generate competitive business opportunities and external investment. Despite the intensification of such regional programmes, promoters and critics alike continue to consider CARICOM to be an intergovernmental organization dependent on the political will of member states as they negotiate the pressures of neoliberal globalization. In this paper, I argue that such a framing of regional integration in the Caribbean misses some of the tangible ways that CARICOM works beyond the sovereign intent of member states to enable the encroachment of neoliberal-style economic orders across the space of the region. I adopt a Foucauldian analytics of governmentality to unhinge CARICOM from the governments of its member states. Once freed from a persistent statism it becomes possible to consider the technical competencies through which CARICOM initiatives increasingly connect and cohere with neoliberal rationalities. My goal in developing such an analytics is not to suggest CARICOM operates as a superstate but rather to broaden the sites considered relevant to understanding the encroachment of neoliberalism in the Caribbean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on planning-related topics which include an examination of the popularity of dancing in New Zealand during the 1920s and 1930s, an examination of how religious diversity in community affects church membership in a period of high growth and social change and an examination of child labor in urban industries in the Dutch Republic.

In the work, the energy security indicators in a region (a state) are considered, and two general directions are proposed for search among the criteria for estimation and forecast of the damage inflicted by power supply limitations: based on the differentiated calculations for each economic subject, and on the generalised indices of regional economy. Of especial interest is analysis of a recently introduced damage intensity factor and its dependence on the level of limitations and the type of energy carriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional economic communities, which are growing in numbers and size, play an increasingly important role in information and communication technology (ICT) policymaking. As seen through the lens of complex adaptive systems theory, such systems should strive to generate adaptive policies through adaptive policymaking processes that position them to respond to rapid technological change. To date, however, regional policymaking has been overly concerned with policy harmonization as an outcome, possibly to the detriment of other important goals. Despite this bias, upon closer examination, one finds that regional communities do foster adaptivity through their roles in the formation of epistemic communities, capacity building, and resource pooling. These activities contribute to variation, interaction, and selection, all key processes for adaptation. It is this degree of adaptivity, and its required balance between policy harmonization and competition, that should be the basis for analyzing the effectiveness of regional policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How should we think of the role of regions in relation to the global economy? Theory has surprising gaps when it comes to building a unified vision of these two scales of development. Two contributions to such a vision are proposed in this article. First, the relationship between geographic concentration and the regional economic specialization it underpins and globalization should be theorized as a dynamic process. Standard location and trade theory is not adequate for this task; instead, the dynamic relationship can be captured through growth theory. But capturing this dynamic relationship requires correcting growth theory to separate its local and its global components, which are, respectively, Marshall- Arrow and Romer externalities. Second, the missing element in all theories of geographic concentration and locally specialized development is an element labeled "context" here. A theory of context, in turn, raises important new questions about the dynamic welfare and developmental effects of contemporary processes of fragmenting and relocating production at a global scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neoliberalisation in New Zealand has been driven further as a political project than in most other countries. After two decades of neoliberal economic policy, it is possible to examine how political-economic actors in subnational spaces have responded to vastly new conditions. I provide an account on how regional economic-development policy and planning has reappeared in Auckland in the postrestructuring period. By deploying relational-institutional and poststructural perspectives in the examination of key policy initiatives that coconstituted an emerging regional economic intervention trajectory, I discuss how economic governance has been assembled, assess its structural coherence and directionality, and analyse the role of the state. I argue that regional governance processes are characterised by contingencies, patterns of institutional experimentation, and, increasingly, the work of central state actors. What is not known to date, however, is whether new regulatory structures are having any major material effects on the course of New Zealand's largest regional economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural resources are today the object of considerable attention in regional economics. Ground for new forms of innovation these resources have given rise to numerous works aiming at understanding the emergence and organisation of culture based economic activities and at identifying the role of these activities in regional development and urban planning. The objective of this article is to explore the way in which resources, and in particular cultural resources, are incorporated into production processes on the one hand, and the consequences on the resources of doing so on the other hand. Becoming an economic resource, a cultural “object” (symbol, image, cultural heritage, traditional know-how, etc.) becomes embedded within commercial relationships. The question we address here is what are the causes and consequences of this commodification of culture for the production systems, the customers and for the local communities which put a certain number of their constitutive elements into play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the role of state played in the regional innovation systems through state universities and legal and institutional set-up within Turkey. Initially, the paper will discuss the lack of regional perspective in policy-making that, until very recently, was predominant in Turkey. Secondly, the paper examines two salient laws that have ramifications for regional economics. The key elements in regional innovation systems can be split apart into two sections. On one side there are technology development regions/centres, and university-industry joint research centres. On the other side, taking into account the public research undertaken, there are the state universities, and the role that they play in the earlier mentioned centres/regions. The econometric analysis asserts that each of these elements has a positive and statistically significant effect on the patenting performance of regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A good deal of research within the cultural turn in economic geography has sought to understand the relationship between economic activity and regional culture. This work encompasses an increasingly heterodox set of approaches to regional economic activity, from innovation studies to processes of embedding to accounts of regional learning and clustering, and an increasingly broad set of empirical cases through which these issues are regularly discussed. Only recently has the literature had much to say about the relationship between scientific knowledge and regional culture, however, or about the empirical experience of non-Western regional economic activity and forms of innovation within this. This paper seeks to further develop these two recent strands by bringing them together. Firstly it transposes the study of high-technology regional cultures to a developing world and socialist country context. I examine, as a case study, Cuba's Science Pole, a biomedical growth pole on the outskirts of Havana comprising some forty-two interlinked institutions and 14000 scientists. I show how a space for biotechnology was created and maintained outside of the capitalist milieu with which the industry has come to be associated in the West. More specifically, I reveal how the formal demands made by the Cuban state of this biotechnology endeavour paradoxically encouraged the development of a suite of informal and innovative scientific practices. To account for how this very different approach nevertheless resulted in a similar 'regional culture' of innovation to that found in high-technology regions in the West, I suggest we need to consider not just the structural components of regional cultures (labour mobility, attitudes to risk, etc) but also the forms of rationality that underpin such factors themselves. In order to do this I turn to some of the insights of the science-studies literature as to the epistemological foundations of processes of innovation and knowledge production, to argue that regional cultures of innovation are never just economic spaces, they arc also epistemic spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents abstracts of papers on city planning published from 2007 to 2008, including "Streets, Sounds and Identity in Inter-war Harlem," by Clare Corbould, "(Re)making the Other, Heterosexualising Everyday Space," by Kath Browne, and "Rankings and Reactivity: How Public Measures Recreate Social Worlds," by Wendy Nelson Espeland and Michael Sauder.

In this article, we test the creativity and diversity hypothesis of Richard Florida for European regions. Florida argues that the level of regional economic development depends on the levels of technology, talent, and tolerance that regions harbour. Tolerance, in this case, is a measure for diversity of lifestyles, the creativity that results from it and population's openness towards non-traditional lifestyles. Using data for 94 European regions we investigate whether differences in creativity and diversity are a good predictor of differences in regional wealth in additive and multiplicative regression models. The results indicate that regional differences in diversity are directly related to differences in regional wealth. Moreover, we find that the synergetic effect of technology and talent on the level of regional wealth depends on the degree of diversity that resides within regions. Our findings support the idea that creativity and diversity deserve a more prominent place in economic geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on planning which include "Labor Unions and Affordable Housing: An Uneasy Relationship," "Smoke and Mirrors: Willy Clarkson and the Role of Disguises in Inter-War England," and "Urbanization and Spatial Organization: Hospital and Orphanage Location in Chicago, 1848-1916."

This article analyses the US proposal to establish a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and argues that two approaches to the FTAA exist, as evidenced during the negotiating process. The first approach is strategic regionalism. Promoted by an alliance of the US and Multinational Enterprises, the objective is to promote regional economic integration based on a radical liberalization of markets accompanied by limited regulation of certain 'trade related issues', notably intellectual property, government procurement and investment. The second approach proposes a gradual liberalization of markets, common industrial development and a regional social policy. Advocates of this approach include governments, regional groupings, some business groups and civil society organizations. This article explores the ways in which these Latin American actors have confronted the 'strategic regionalism' approach and argues that their strategies of opposition and contestation are a major cause of current collapse in the FTAA negotiation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional integration processes can learn from the particularities of the European Union's social dimension, despite its apparent inconsistencies and sui generis form of development. The article provides a comprehensive retrospective overview of developments, and pays particular attention to the political and technical procedures adopted for progressing social policy. It argues that a regional integration process in a wide range of social fields has developed in the EU despite facing dissent and dilemmas for over 50 years. It claims that the EU now enjoys a working and workable apparatus of policies, practices and laws in a broad social dimension, that are not only far more extensive than first envisaged in the Treaty of Rome, but are also destined to expand further. In particular, the article moves beyond previous accounts in arguing that procedural complexity has been an intrinsic and creative part of the social dimension to European integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ASEAN has come a long way since its founding in 1967. It has achieved a certain degree of political cohesion on some regional and international issues. It has helped keep the peace among its members. It has adopted norms for inter-state relations and managed to get others to accede to those norms. It has healed the divisions in Southeast Asia. It has served as the core of regionalism in East Asia and the Asia Pacific. ASEAN has reduced or abolished tariffs on much intro- ASEAN trade and committed its members to other measures for the integration of the regional economy. It has established modes of cooperation in dealing with regional problems. However, ASEAN has fallen short of the ambitions that it has proclaimed for itself, particularly in terms of driving regionalism and regional economic integration. A major reason for this is the fact that political cohesion and economic integration are pursued independently of each other. Here, regional institutions could help in formulating, for the member-states' adoption, a regional outlook and coordinating politics and economics as a coherent whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a study on the functioning of regional innovation networks (RINs) in the Netherlands. RINs are designed to achieve sustainable and socially acceptable regional economic development. By focusing on inter-human processes, the study aimed to gain more and deeper insights into the nature, the workings, the potential and the limitations of RINs in processes of innovation. An important insight from the study concerns the role of governments in RINs. Although the intention of the central government was to experiment with a fully bottom-up process, all RINs were eager to involve the government at different levels, at different times and for different purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the location quotient, a common measurement from economic geography and regional economics, to capture the specialization of criminal activity in Vancouver, Canada. Location quotients have barely been introduced into criminological research, yet they provide additional insight into crime analysis not available using crime counts and crime rates. The location quotients for automotive theft, break and enter, and violent crimes are mapped for Vancouver, Canada, and tested using social disorganization and routine activity theory as a theoretical framework. Strong support is found for these theories to predict specialization in criminal activity by interpreting their expectations in the context of crime-specific attractors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]