'Whither regional studies?'

'Whither regional studies?'
Author: Andy Pike
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 133
Release: 2013-09-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 131799051X

Regional studies are at a vibrant conjuncture. ‘Regions’ continue to provide a conceptual and analytical focus for often overlapping concerns with economic, social, political, cultural and ecological change. In the context of increased interest in inter- and multi-disciplinary approaches, ‘regions’ remain an arena in which synthesis across disciplines – economics, geography, planning, politics and sociology – can take place. Yet recent work has raised fundamental questions about how we think about and research ‘regions’ and regional change, ‘development’, governance and regulation. First, emergent conceptual ideas have introduced new thinking about space, place and scale that interprets ‘regions’ as ‘unbounded’, relational spaces. This work has disturbed notions of ‘regions’ as bounded territories and questioned hierarchical systems of scale through more complex, multi-scalar approaches. Second, research methodology has grown in sophistication and sensitivity but remains somewhat polarised between the binaries of positivist, often quantitative, and more theoretically diverse, typically qualitative, approaches. Last, regional governance, policy and politics are wrestling with the conceptual, methodological and political complexities of new modes and geographies of governance and emergent multi-agent and multi-level institutional architectures. This book brings together important voices in regional studies to contribute to and reflect upon these current issues and debates. While we are at an early stage in beginning to think through what such conceptual, theoretical, methodological, governance, policy and political innovations and developments mean for regional studies, the magnitude and resonance of such issues underpin the vitality of research on the region. This book was published as a special issue of Regional Studies.

Methods of Interregional and Regional Analysis

Methods of Interregional and Regional Analysis
Author: Walter Isard
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 515
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351917900

This landmark textbook introduces students to the principles of regional science and focuses on the key methods used in regional analysis, including regional and interregional input-output analysis, econometrics (regional and spatial), programming and industrial and urban complex analysis, gravity and spatial interaction models, SAM and social accounting (welfare) analysis and applied general interregional equilibrium models. The coherent development of the materials contained in the set of chapters provides students with a comprehensive background and understanding of how to investigate key regional problems. For the research scholar, this publication constitutes an up-to-date source book of the basic elements of each major regional science technique. More significant, it points to new directions for future research and ways interregional and regional analytic approaches can be fused to realise much more probing attacks on regional and spatial problems - a contribution far beyond what is available in the literature.

Companion to Urban and Regional Studies

Companion to Urban and Regional Studies
Author: Anthony M. Orum
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 676
Release: 2021-07-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1119316871

COMPANION TO URBAN AND REGIONAL STUDIES Indispensable overview and timely coverage of the major issues, debates, and research topics in urban and regional studies Companion to Urban and Regional Studies offers an up-to-date view of the rapidly growing field, exploring a diversity of theoretical perspectives, current and emerging research, and critical global policy concerns. Uniquely broad in geographical and thematic scope, this comprehensive volume brings together essays by more than fifty international scholars and researchers to provide expert assessments spanning the many dimensions of urban studies. Organized into five parts, the Companion begins with a review of the current state of cities across East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, North America, Europe, and Latin America, and all other world regions. Subsequent sections discuss contemporary theoretical perspectives, describe common methodological approaches used by urban scholars, and examine the political, social, and economic problems facing twenty-first century cities. Covering historical issues, current challenges, and comparative perspectives in urban studies, this timely resource: Addresses intensely debated policy issues such as governance, housing, immigration and migration, segregation, social mix, and gentrification Describes the use of demographic methods, advanced spatial analysis, social networks, policy mobilities, and ethnographies in urban studies research Discusses critical urban theory, feminist urban research, urbanization and environmental change, and the legacy of the Chicago School Covers contemporary research topics such as urban and regional inequalities, social heterogeneity and diversity, financialization Includes representative case studies of each region, including Australasia, Latin America, East Asia and South Asia Companion to Urban and Regional Studies is essential reading for scholars, researchers, practitioners, urban activists, and students, and it represents a must-have complement to The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies.

The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies

The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies
Author: Anthony M. Orum
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 2919
Release: 2019-04-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1118568451

Provides comprehensive coverage of major topics in urban and regional studies Under the guidance of Editor-in-Chief Anthony Orum, this definitive reference work covers central and emergent topics in the field, through an examination of urban and regional conditions and variation across the world. It also provides authoritative entries on the main conceptual tools used by anthropologists, sociologists, geographers, and political scientists in the study of cities and regions. Among such concepts are those of place and space; geographical regions; the nature of power and politics in cities; urban culture; and many others. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies captures the character of complex urban and regional dynamics across the globe, including timely entries on Latin America, Africa, India and China. At the same time, it contains illuminating entries on some of the current concepts that seek to grasp the essence of the global world today, such as those of Friedmann and Sassen on ‘global cities’. It also includes discussions of recent economic writings on cities and regions such as those of Richard Florida. Comprised of over 450 entries on the most important topics and from a range of theoretical perspectives Features authoritative entries on topics ranging from gender and the city to biographical profiles of figures like Frank Lloyd Wright Takes a global perspective with entries providing coverage of Latin America and Africa, India and China, and, the US and Europe Includes biographies of central figures in urban and regional studies, such as Doreen Massey, Peter Hall, Neil Smith, and Henri Lefebvre The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies is an indispensable reference for students and researchers in urban and regional studies, urban sociology, urban geography, and urban anthropology.

The City and Quality of Life

The City and Quality of Life
Author: Peter K. Kresl
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 136
Release: 2021-04-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1800880111

This unique and insightful work examines the importance of ‘quality of life’ for the city which has become a key component of urban competitiveness over the past 30 years. It argues that having a high or low ‘quality of life’ will have important consequences for the vitality and status of any city. The book’s six substantive chapters explore this issue by each examining a distinct element that comprises ‘quality of life’, including the approach of economists to quality of life, links to urban competitiveness, the economy, urban amenities and attributes.

The Capacity to Innovate

The Capacity to Innovate
Author: Sarah Giest
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2021
Genre: POLITICAL SCIENCE
ISBN: 1442622148

"In The Capacity to Innovate, Sarah Giest provides insight into the collaborative and absorptive capacities needed to provide public support to local innovation through cluster organizations. The book offers a detailed view of the vertical, multi-level, and horizontal dynamics in clusters and cluster policy and addresses how they are managed and supported. Using the biotechnology field as an example, Giest highlights challenges in the collaborative efforts of public bodies, private companies, and research institutes to establish a successful eco-system of innovation in this sector. The book argues that cluster policy in collaboration with cluster organizations should focus on absorptive and collaborative capacity elements missing in the cluster context in order to improve performance. Currently, governments operate at different levels--local to supranational--in order to support clusters, and cluster policies are often pursued in parallel to other programs. As the book shows, this can lead to uncoordinated efforts and ineffective cluster strategies. Relational dynamics are often overlooked when working backwards from performance indicators, since their effects are largely indirect but Giest demonstrates that both the cluster organization and the cluster eco-system play a role. The Capacity to Innovate advocates for a coordinated effort by government and cluster organizations to support capacity elements lacking within the specific cluster context."--

Resilience, Crisis and Innovation Dynamics

Resilience, Crisis and Innovation Dynamics
Author: Tüzin Baycan
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2018-06-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1786432196

Resilience has emerged as a recurrent notion to explain how territorial socio-economic systems adapt successfully (or not) to negative events. In this book, the authors use resilience as a bridging notion to connect different types of theoretical and empirical approaches to help understand the impacts of economic turbulence at the system and actor levels. The book provides a unique overview of the financial crisis and the important dimension of innovation dynamics for regional resilience. It also offers an engaging debate as to how regional resilience can be improved and explores the social aspects of vulnerability, resilience and innovation.

The Futures of the City Region

The Futures of the City Region
Author: Michael Neuman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 145
Release: 2013-09-13
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1317986288

Does the ‘city region’ constitute a new departure in urbanisation? If so, what are the key elements of that departure? The realities of the urban in the 21st century are increasingly complex and polychromatic. The rise of global networks enabled by supranational administrations, both governmental and corporate, strongly influences and structures the management of urban life. How we conceive the city region has intellectual and practical consequences. First, in helping us grasp rapidly changing realities; and second in facilitating the flow of resources, ideas and learning to enhance the quality of life of citizens. Two themes interweave through this collection, within this broad palette. First are the socio-spatial constructs and their relationship to the empirical evidence of change in the physical and functional aspects of urban form. Second is what they mean for the spatial scales of governance. This latter theme explores territorially based understandings of intervention and the changing set of political concerns in selected case studies. In efforts to address these issues and improve upon knowledge, this collection brings together international scholars building new data-driven, cross-disciplinary theories to create new images of the city region that may prove to supplement if not supplant old ones. The book illustrates the dialectical interplay of theory and fact, time and space, and spatial and institutional which expands on our intellectual grasp of the theoretical debates on ‘city-regions’ through ‘practical knowing’, citing examples from Europe, the United States, Australasia, and beyond. This book was originally published as a Special Issue of Regional Studies.

Affective Assemblages and Local Economies

Affective Assemblages and Local Economies
Author: Joanie Willett
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023-09-15
Genre:
ISBN: 9781538150726

This book explores what becomes visible if we look at peripheral, deprived rural regions through the lens of a complex adaptive assemblage and how we can better support these communities.

Regional Economic Impact Analysis and Project Evaluation

Regional Economic Impact Analysis and Project Evaluation
Author: H. Craig Davis
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 194
Release: 1990
Genre: Canada
ISBN: 0774803509

This book provides a non-technical introduction to the fundamental principles and techniques of regional impact and evaluation analysis. The book is written for readers who have a minimal background in mathematics and economics and so the materials listed in the bibliographies have been chosen for their accessibility to such readers. References to relevant papers of a more technical nature are indicated in notes in each reference.Unlike existing texts, which usually concentrate on regional impact or evaluation analysis, Regional Economic Impact Analysis and Project Evaluation offers an extensive introduction to both these subjects, since both are critical to the study and practice of regional economic analysis.Two case studies, intended as illustrations of practical applications, are included in each of the six chapters that deal with specific principles or techniques. While many of the case studies and much of the literature cited in the bibliographies is Canadian, a substantial portion is from the United States and Great Britain, demonstrating that the principles and techniques discussed in this book are universally applicable.