While Garreau's book is a fun read it always was a stylistic/ impressionistic interpretation of the similarities between areas particularly of the US. His understanding of Canada even back then reads as being thin and times have certainly changed. For one thing there is more data avaialable than ever before, so it is now beginning to be possible to conduct more rigorous analysis.
Two authors that I have been reading lately are John Short (2007) and Nordhaus (2009). Short's book "Liquid City" is a detailed analysis of the North East conurbation encompassing Boston to Washinton. His maps and analysis is very interesting.
On the other hand Nordhaus who is a professor at Yale and mostly writes on climate change has been working for several years on developing economic geography data for realtively small geographic spaces (not administrative regions such as states or provinces) and then maps the the data with GIS software. His work truly shows how skiky the world really is. His work is the basis for a substantial part of the recent World Development report and he has a journal article in The B.E. Journal of Economic Analsis and Policy (2009 Vol 9 iss 2 p1-12). A substantial part of the project, it seems, is on the web. If your interested take a look at the graphic for Canada. http://gecon.yale.edu/Canada.htm the atoll nature of the Canadian economy is clearly observable.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Macro-regions similarity or interdependencies
In the course of analysing the international geography of innovation I keep an eye on the literature focussing on macro-regions. Macro regions at their most simplistic can basically be defined as economic or social regions which ignore conventional jurisdical borders.
A classic in this vein is Joel Garreau's Nine Nations of North America (1981) http://www.garreau.com/main.cfm?action=book&id=3 a very easy read.
An interesting comparison of geographies of similarity is the beyond borders project http://www.beyondbordersbook.com/index.html
Another in a similar vein is Richard Florida 'mega-regions' http://cjres.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/1/3/459.
These take a somewhat similar perspective by looking for regions that can be grouped either by mainly geographic and social characterisitcs (Garreau) or by agglomerations of activity, measured for example by Florida with light emissions data.
But what of interdependencies? Typically ignored because it is data intensive or isn't within the established construct. However, there are obvious examples. The North American auto complex is a 'corridor' that streches from southern Ontario down to Mexico following important highways and railway lines. But that is an easy eaxample because it is largely contiguous. For other sectors California and New York may be more closely linked than regions surrounding New York.
Identifying regions of similarity and continuous geography is something we are familar with, define a piece of land and draw a border around it (which can have significant value in itself) but we are less familiar with network geography.
A classic in this vein is Joel Garreau's Nine Nations of North America (1981) http://www.garreau.com/main.cfm?action=book&id=3 a very easy read.
An interesting comparison of geographies of similarity is the beyond borders project http://www.beyondbordersbook.com/index.html
Another in a similar vein is Richard Florida 'mega-regions' http://cjres.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/1/3/459.
These take a somewhat similar perspective by looking for regions that can be grouped either by mainly geographic and social characterisitcs (Garreau) or by agglomerations of activity, measured for example by Florida with light emissions data.
But what of interdependencies? Typically ignored because it is data intensive or isn't within the established construct. However, there are obvious examples. The North American auto complex is a 'corridor' that streches from southern Ontario down to Mexico following important highways and railway lines. But that is an easy eaxample because it is largely contiguous. For other sectors California and New York may be more closely linked than regions surrounding New York.
Identifying regions of similarity and continuous geography is something we are familar with, define a piece of land and draw a border around it (which can have significant value in itself) but we are less familiar with network geography.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Thinking about geography
In my first post I mentioned the idea this this blog will be in part aimed at teasing out definitions of geography.
My interest in this is driven by my primary interest in what is called 'innovation systems'. Essentially innovation systems are 'places' where it is apparent that there are greater levels of innovation (particularly technology creation) occurring. But how do we define geography?
Taking just one easy high profile example.
Is silicon valley a cluster that should be treated by itself.
Should silcon valley be considered a part of California, which by itself is one of the world's major economies? What about it being part of a national innovation system (the USA). Alternatively is the silicon valley bit part of a large region that stretches from California to Alaska - Ecotopia - to use a term also used by Garreau in his The Nine Nations of North America.
These questions are in part philosophical and in some part empirical. Yet it is hard to build a dataset that can answer the deepst questions. However, I have tried to capture some of them in my book Innovation System Frontiers.
Why is any of this important? We define areas of landscape and allocate them to various polictical jurisdictions and level of political action. So policy is effective for particular places but an innovation system may functionally extend across a political border. Then what?
My interest in this is driven by my primary interest in what is called 'innovation systems'. Essentially innovation systems are 'places' where it is apparent that there are greater levels of innovation (particularly technology creation) occurring. But how do we define geography?
Taking just one easy high profile example.
Is silicon valley a cluster that should be treated by itself.
Should silcon valley be considered a part of California, which by itself is one of the world's major economies? What about it being part of a national innovation system (the USA). Alternatively is the silicon valley bit part of a large region that stretches from California to Alaska - Ecotopia - to use a term also used by Garreau in his The Nine Nations of North America.
These questions are in part philosophical and in some part empirical. Yet it is hard to build a dataset that can answer the deepst questions. However, I have tried to capture some of them in my book Innovation System Frontiers.
Why is any of this important? We define areas of landscape and allocate them to various polictical jurisdictions and level of political action. So policy is effective for particular places but an innovation system may functionally extend across a political border. Then what?
Friday, July 24, 2009
Introducing this blog
This blog will be about various rather academic interests to do with both better understanding the geography of real economies and also with how we can better depict the shape of economies. Of course these two interests are highly inter-related.
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