Growth, equity and dependence in a restructuring city region.

The article focuses on Buffalo in New York City as a typical example of many other declining industrial centres. Although still a major manufacturing centre in New York Buffalo has suffered a sustained decline in industrial employment over the last decade. The article suggests that for Buffalo this process of decline has led to a fairly entrenched relationship between economic growth and social distribution namely that most kinds of economic growth lead to a worsening of distribution. This relationship is rather stable to other ongoing changes in the economy such as the long run trend from manufacturing to service activities. It also does not appear to be affected greatly by economic policies as diverse as the promotion of new economic activity versus support for older sectors. The first section of the article highlights the key income flows in the Buffalo economy followed by general discussion of the internal structure of the economy that shows the relationship between growth and social distribution.