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Regions and the World Economy

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Regions and the World Economy

The Coming Shape of Global Production, Competition and Political Order

Oxford UP,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

The city-state will rise again, only now we’ll call it a region, and these regions will become the dominant organizing unit of the world’s economy — so be sure you live in, and invest in, a good one.

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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

Allen J. Scott’s short, scholarly book makes a compelling case for the future growth of regional economies and explains the key role they are likely to play in shaping future global political and economic development. Though written in dense, academic language, the book makes its points clearly and supports them with research, theory and statistics. Scott’s guidelines for ’regional directorates’ reflect many experiments that are already under way around the world, and seeks to capture the best features of each. If his basic idea is correct, then a conscious effort to build regional institutions should speed economic development and reduce world economic stresses. This book is heavy reading, but it is concise and to the point. getAbstract recommends it to executives in multinational corporations, entrepreneurs thinking about where to locate, urban planners, civic leaders and government officials - in short, anyone who wants to promote or profit from regional economic development.

Summary

A Patchwork of Regions

At the same time that the world seems to be shrinking in the new global order, geography is becoming more significant in human affairs. Mankind is facing a new socio-spatial duality, made up of a patchwork of differentiated regions interacting globally.

A region, in this sense, is a geographic area of subnational extent, including a developed metropolitan area and its surrounding hinterlands. In other words, a region is the common spatial framework for daily life for a set group of people. Every region’s economic fate is influenced, for good or ill, by what happens in every other region around the world. Improvements in communication and transportation have brought every part of the world into close contact with every other part. Even given that fact, some kinds of social and economic transactions don’t work well over long distances.

New technologies actually have made regions important, while the sovereign state is under stress. The de-coupling of nations from economies is part of this trend. Strategic thinking about the American economy or the French economy may become obsolete. Alternative forms of governance and social organization ...

About the Author

Allen J. Scott is a professor in the Departments of Policy Studies and Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of three other books: : Metropolis, New Industrial Spaces and Technopolis.

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