Sustainable/Regional Development

• Update on Economic Analysis: Overview of the research program - Understanding the location of economic activity is important because it is at the scale of towns, cities and regions that Canadians participate in economic activity. That is, it is at these relatively small geographic scales that people live out their economic lives - find jobs, purchase goods and services, buy a home, etc.
  The Economic Geography research program has been established to use Statistics Canada data to better understand the spatial organization of Canada's economy. In other words, as Dicken and Lloyd note in Location in Space, economic geography is concerned with where various elements of Canada's economy are located, how they are connected together in space, and the impact of structural changes to the Canadian economy on the location of economic activity.
• The Geography of Economic Development - Globalization is a dynamic process of the economic integration of virtually the entire world. At least four aspects of this increased economic integration are worth bearing in mind. What most of us think of as the first part of globalization is increased international trade. There is no doubt that the role of international trade within any individual economy, and therefore for the world as a whole, has been increasing in importance relative to other kinds of economic activity. A typical measure that economists use is an economyÕs ratio of exports or imports to total outputÑthat is, gross domestic product, GDP. If we look at the ratio of either exports or imports to GDP for virtually any economy in the world, we find that it has been rising; in a number of economies it has been rising particularly rapidly in the last fifteen years. On a day-to-day basis, economies today feel the effect of the international system much more heavily than they did forty years ago. Firms increasingly are directly engaged overseas as exporters or importers, and producers are exposed to competition of imports from the rest of the world.
• Telecommunications Technology and American Rural Development in the 21st Century - In this paper, I sketch briefly the history of telecommunications technologies, including the Internet and business use of telematics. This is followed by a discussion of the Internet and its impact on demand for telecommunications. Next, telecommunications as a factor of production for location of firms is considered, especially knowledge-based activities and the telecommunications-travel tradeoff. The specific problems of rural areas is the focus of the next section. The paper concludes with policy concerns in the light of regional development.
• Some Chaotic Thoughts On Regional Dynamics - Paul Krugman
• Technological Innovation And Theories Of Regional Development - Technological innovation and regional development are two closely intertwined processes that shape and support the other. Although both originate from economics, they have been separated for most of the 20th century. Classic economic thinkers such as Ricardo recognized the role of technology, albeit he saw diminishing returns to agriculture and capital formation as more important, and Marx's theory placed technological innovation as one of the prime movers in capitalist development. Regrettably early theories of regional development, e.g., location theory, followed Ricardo's lead and treated technological innovation as secondary in relation to other conditions, such as labor to capital ratios. Location theory strove for optimal resource allocation and ceteris paribus assumed unchanging technology that was freely available and instantly adapted by firms and countries. The process of invention becoming innovation and diffusing simply was not reflected in this model.
• Economic Growth and Provincial Disparity: A New View of an Old Canadian Problem - The study, Economic Growth and Provincial Disparity: A New View of an Old Canadian Problem, was written by Serge Coulombe, Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa.
  Coulombe notes that, despite Canada's huge size and geographic diversity, many disparities between rich and poor regions were gradually removed between 1950 and the mid-1980s through the "convergence phenomenon," whereby human and physical capital tend to accumulate more quickly in regions where they are relatively scarce. Interregional transfers, Coulombe argues, played their part by helping to finance improvements (in the form of better education and training) in human capital in the poorer regions, especially Atlantic Canada. This, in turn, helped to attract financial and physical capital into those areas. Since the mid-1980s, however, the catch-up process generated by the convergence of capital seems to have exhausted its effects, and the disparities that persist reflect not only the industrial structure of the regions but also the institutional and political context. The downside of fiscal federalism, Coulombe argues, is that, by financing the delivery of health care, education, and income support by the poorer provinces at levels comparable to those found in richer provinces, it encourages Canadians to remain in low-productivity regions. Individuals who cannot find work in their home province need not, therefore, move to benefit from adequate public services.
• Localised Learning and Industrial Competitiveness - This paper attempts to place regional development within the context of modern resource base theory. Firms do not locate or relocate in order to make use of ubiquities, but to utilise appropriate differences in regional capabilities, and the paper discusses the nature of such capabilities in enhancing or abating the competitiveness of firms, emphasising the crucial role of collective learning and tacit knowledge of firms and markets.
  Learning processes are inherently interactive in nature and generally characterised by uncertainty. Most new knowledge is related to problem-solving, often on a trial-and-error basis, and as such it is normally arrived at incrementally. The interactive processes of solving problems, where the needs of one party becomes the driving force for action of another, contain both codified and tacit elements. Indeed, we argue that in an era when codified knowledge is globally disseminated faster than ever before, tacit, and spatially much less mobile, forms of knowledge are becoming more important as a basis for sustaining competitive advantage.
  Regional capabilities can be seen as the combination of the human and physical resources available, the structures established in the region through time, and the regions specific institutional endowment as it is shaped by the previous rounds of knowledge creation. By embodying knowledge useful for particular classes of activities the institutional endowment reinforce the parth-dependent nature of regional economic development.
• Research on Integrated Information System for Regional Sustainable Development and Its Application in China - The process of information management and decision making in regional sustainable development is discussed. Based on this discussion we propose a framework and analyze features of an Integrated Information System for Regional Sustainable Development (IIS-RSD). We further discuss specific functions of one of the IIS-RSD subsystems, the Capacity Evaluation System (CES). This paper is part of a more general discussion on sustainable development research in China and we conclude with an outline of the IIS-RSD implementation issues in a Chinese setting.
• State of Rural Utah 2001 - As this new year begins, rural Utah finds itself at one of those pivotal times of transition - when significant changes are taking place. A new economy is rapidly emerging. It is taking the country and its institutions in new directions and to new destinations. In rural Utah there is a gnawing sense of anxiety about this New Economy. It is a nagging concern that the rural areas of the state could be left behind - and be left out - unless they can somehow find a way to latch on to this new economic engine before it leaves the station.
• Smart Growth In Canada - The term "smart growth" was coined in the United States to suggest an alternative, not just to "problem growth," but to "no growth." In the mid-1990s, the suburbs of American cities like Atlanta and San Diego were expanding rapidly, sprawling across the landscape. Environmentalists had long deplored this trend, but as the economic costs of sprawl began to be felt, the demand for a new approach was taken up by businesspeople, commuters, and local governments. State officials, searching for a middle way that would allow for necessary growth and development, but in ways that were less wasteful of resources and less likely to encounter opposition, came up with "smart growth."
• The Region: A Basic Concept For Understanding Local Areas And Global Systems - Regional science is the only field integrating explicitly the notion of region. Through an analysis of the basic regional concepts, such as natural region, homogeneous region, historical region, fonctional region, growth pole, milieu theory, this paper develops the logics of the new regional orders confronted with the economic and political globalization.
• An Entrepreneurial City in Action: Hong Kong's Emerging Strategies in and for (Inter-)Urban Competition - There is widespread interest among policy-makers and observers alike in the entrepreneurial city. It is less obvious what exactly being an entrepreneurial city involves. To help resolve this conundrum our paper first provides a Schumpeterian analysis of the entrepreneurial city and then illustrates it with the Hong Kong case. We first offer a three-part definition of the entrepreneurial city in capitalist societies. This relates urban entrepreneurship to changing forms of competitiveness, changing strategies to promote inter-urban competitiveness in both the economic and extra-economic fields, and entrepreneurial discourses, narratives, and self-images. Schumpeter identified five ways in which entrepreneurs innovate in normal economic activities; our analysis identifies parallels in urban entrepreneurialism. We then critically consider how far such an analysis is valid given the differences between the types of actor involved and the objects of their innovation ­ answering affirmatively in both respects and suggesting the conditions in which cities can be described as strategic actors ith entrepreneurial ambitions. This theoretical analysis is further refined and justified from recent developments in Hong Kong and East Asia. Conventionally regarded as a paradigm case of laissez-faire and officially described in the decades before 1997 as practising 'positive non-intervention', Hong Kong actually has a long history of urban entrepreneurship based on public-private partnerships. But its strategies have been modified as the economic and political environments have changed. Our contribution is particularly concerned with the recent period, when Hong Kong's entrepreneurial city strategies have been developed against the ackground of an emerging cross-border regional space (Greater China) and its favourable insertion into the global circuits of capital. In this context we introduce the concept of 'glurbanization' as one form of the more general phenomenon of 'glocalization' and show how it can be used to illuminate current entrepreneurial city strategies in East Asia.
• Sustainable Global Communities in the Information Age - (Book review). The thesis advanced by the editor of this collection is that because the information age is radically different from the industrial age, a new socieoeconomic system is needed that is sustainable, community based, and can accommodate and use new information technology. Twenty three contributors and 20 chapters later, the reader has been informed of why the cognitive revolution in psychology is important, what future-oriented projects UNESCO has taken on recently (in what seems like a three and one-half page infomercial), how the spinning wheel and pit loom can revitalize communities in India, and where a proposed futures-focused university to be called The Network University of the Green World should be located (answer: on a small island in Japan). The book is challenging to read. Futures studies combines research, assessment, and policy making as it pulls from a wide range of academic disciplines, including sociology, political science, and economics.
• Managing information for development in The 21st century: prospects for African libraries, challenges to the world - The paper discusses the vital role information can play in the development of African countries in the 21st century. It stresses that development information can only be guaranteed when libraries in Africa computerize their systems, form networks for resource sharing and take advantage of the numerous benefits of IT, especially CD-ROM and the Internet. An indepth review of the information management climate of African libraries was made and this was found to be very unfavourable. Problems found to be inhibiting IT application by African libraries include apathy and inadequate funding by governments and their officials, undeveloped information and communication infrastructure and shortage of technical manpower.Despite the bottlenecks, African libraries have the challenge to efficiently and effectively manage information in the 21st century in order to facilitate technology transfer, support teaching, learning and research, and project Africa's achievements and potentials to the rest of the world for mutual benefits. Considering the widespread democratization in Africa, blueprints for improved economy, better provision of information infrastructure, and progress already made in IT application and networking in Africa, it was established that the chances of African libraries to automate their services in the 21st Century are very bright.The paper concludes that both Africa and the rest of the world need mutually beneficial information from each other. The challenges, therefore for taking positive steps to promote modern information management in the new millenium is not only for African libraries but for the world at large.
• A Self-Organizing Systems Perspective on Planning for Sustainability - Current approaches to planning and management are inadequate for achieving sustainability. Complexities, uncertainties, and interconnections among natural and social systems preclude the possibility of predicting and controlling future outcomes, yet these qualities are implicit in many planning approaches. The rational-comprehensive model arising from the engineering paradigm, is increasingly questioned, but continues to underlie many planning processes. Achieving sustainability requires flexible, adaptive planning that is capable of recognizing uncertain futures, synergistic possibilities, differing perspectives, and multiple values.
  In response to these concerns, concepts from 'new' systems thinking are considered in this thesis. A distinction is made between two types of self-producing systems. Autopoietic (self-producing) systems are autonomous units with self-defined boundaries that tend to be centrally controlled, homeostatic, and predictable. Sympoietic (collectively-producing) systems do not have self-defined spatial or temporal boundaries. Information and control are distributed among components. The systems are evolutionary and have the potential for surprising change. Since they cannot be identified by boundaries, sympoietic systems must be identified by the self-organizing factors involved in their generation.
  The contrast between the two system types provides a useful heuristic for identifying and conceptualizing many complex systems that are relevant to planning for sustainability. The different characteristics illustrate the need to apply different approaches in different situations. The characteristics also illustrate that many of the systems we must cope with are sympoietic, although they have mistakenly been interpreted as autopoietic.
  A variety of examples including small groups, western science, and national parks are used to illustrate the concepts and their application. The latter examples, in particular, are used to consider the implications of these systems concepts for planning. Such critique is relevant to the systems of concern to planning as well as the planning systems themselves. In addition, the concepts illustrate possibilities for developing more appropriate approaches. Both critiques and possibilities are discussed.
  This thesis is primarily conceptual and makes no attempt to draw definitive conclusions. Its primary value is in presentation and description of two contrasting lenses that provide alternative views of the world, forcing recognition of system properties often neglected. In addition, its value lies in the system concepts described, the consequent potential for conceptualization and critique of many intractable situations, and, perhaps most particularly, for the possibility of considering new directions to pursue.
• The Economics of Korean Unification - Since the historic summit in June, North and South Korea have expanded economic cooperation. The South Korean President Kim Dae-jung was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The outlook on the peninsula is certainly positive. However, the economics of the unification of the two Koreas are extremely politicized and the stakes are extraordinarily high for South Korea and countries such as the United States that have a direct stake in Korean affairs.
• Cities In Competition: Articulating The Gains From Integration - This paper reviews the interaction of competition between cities - territorial competition - and the process of European integration. By 'territorial competition' is meant a process through which groups, acting on behalf of a regional or sub-regional economy (typically that of a city-region), seek to promote it as a location for economic activity either implicitly or explicitly in competition with other areas. This competitive activity is often addressed to the attraction of mobile investment, sometimes with discrimination between more and less desirable activities. But it may equally be concerned with enhancing the share of existing local businesses in the markets they serve and generating new businesses and markets. Territorial competition may use national programmes or European Structural Funds but, in contrast to traditional regional policy, it is bottom-up in motivation and is concerned with economic efficiency (conceived purely locally) not with spatial equity.
• Regional Convergence and Aggregate Growth - A striking feature of US states convergence is the link between the spatial speed of convergence and the aggregate growth rate: fast aggregate growth induces a reduction in regional inequalities. This paper uses a neoclassical growth framework with integrated economies in order to capture this phenomena. As it has been stressed by Ventura, the interdependence between regional economies through the access to common markets generates a link between aggregate evolution and spatial convergence dynamics. The paper has two main results. First, we show how deep parameters of the economy determines quantitatively the magnitude of this link. Second, we propose two directions for testing the model and we provide some empirical evidence using US states data on personal income. These results are mixed, only a part of the convergence pattern is well captured by the model.
• Introduction to Regional Science and the Web Book - To introduce the Web Book of Regional Science it is first necessary to explain the basics of the field of Regional Science. For regional scientists, a region is in most instances a geographical area smaller than the nation in which it is found. So a region might be a city, a county, a group of counties or a state. Regions often defy governmental boundaries, as when the issue under study relates to a labor market area or a watershed. Social scientists have studied regions for hundreds of years, but it wasn't until the 1954 formation of the Regional Science Association that Regional Science became formally recognized as an interdisciplinary field of scholarly endeavor. The existence of RSA (now Regional Science Association International) and its progeny (several "regional" and "superregional" regional science associations) fosters better codification of methods and exchange of frontier ideas from such fields as geography, sociology, planning, statistics, and economics. The Web Book of Regional Science continues the process of codification and exchange by bringing together on one web site comprehensive descriptions of many of the basic concepts, analytical tools and policy issues important to regional science.
• The Web Book of Regional Science - Welcome to the home page of the Web Book of Regional Science! These materials are for use in introductory learning environments for upper division undergraduates, graduate students, and practitioners.
• Global Vision: Global Strategy - Can Humankind really develop a sustainable civilisation that does not deplete the resources needed for future generations - or are we headed for global catastrophe? The world's leading experts in all the relevant fields agree that we still have the resources, technology, and knowledge to develop a form of civilisation that could be economically healthy, socially equitable, and ecologically sustainable. Significant progress has been made since the United Nations Earth Summit in 1992 to put the concept of sustainability on the local / global agenda. But this progress falls dramatically short of the level of action that is needed to make the effort a success.
• India's High Tech Marvel Makes Abstract Real - On The Southeastern coast of India, the state of Andhra Pradesh is undertaking a dramatic experiment in building an information society. It is breaking ground as the only region in the world attempting to move directly from a rural to an information economy ­ skipping industrialization...
• Welcome to the Best Practices Database - This searchable database contains over 1100 proven solutions from more than 120 countries to the common social, economic and environmental problems of an urbanizing world. It demonstrates the practical ways in which communities, governments and the private sector are working together to improve governance, eradicate poverty, provide access to shelter, land and basic services, protect the environment and support economic development.
• Regional Economic Performance, Governance and Cohesion in an Enlarged Europe
• Index- NGO Steering Committee - The global coalition of NGOs and major groups working for sustainable development at the United Nations.
• The economic space of the Caribbean and the regionalized world - Caribbean economies are highly vulnerable in relation to external conditions, but, at the same time, they are compelled to participate in the global processes of regionalization and economic integration: they simply cannot step aside and they cannot allow themselves to be left lagging behind in these processes.
• European Foundation | Sustainable Development | Introduction - Sustainable development is the achievement of continued economic and social development without detriment to the environment and natural resources. The quality of future human activity and development is increasingly seen as being dependent on maintaining this balance. This Sustainable Development homepage has been specifically designed to support the needs of the social partners at all levels in their activities to promote sustainable development from a practical company level to a policy level. In particular, it is hoped that employers and employees at small and medium sized companies will benefit from the information and tools provided. The resources here may also assist public policy makers and non-governmental organisations working in the area.
• Institut canadien de recherche sur le développement régional - The Canadian Institute for Research on Regional Development (CIRRD), located on the campus of the Université de Moncton, was established in 1983. The institute's primary purpose is to serve as a centre for the study of regional development. Through its programs, it seeks to encourage continuing research into questions relating to regional development. It is an independent, nonprofit organization governed by a board of directors, which is its decision-making body. The Canadian Institute for Research on Regional Development (CIRRD), located on the campus of the Université de Moncton, was established in 1983. The institute's primary purpose is to serve as a centre for the study of regional development. Through its programs, it seeks to encourage continuing research into questions relating to regional development. It is an independent, nonprofit organization governed by a board of directors, which is its decision-making body.
• From Mines to Minds: Western Australia in the Global Information Economy - To achieve the State's potential will require transitions on a number of fronts. These can be summarised under the following headings:
  Social and Economic: The transition from a provincial to a global perspective on the part of the business community and government.
  Technological: To reconceptualise the Resource Industries as heavy users of information and that this can become the foundation of a business(es) in its own right.
  Environmental: Addressing the impact of ICTs on the State's physical isolation, in particular in relation to:
  • the effect on various industries' value chain, and;
  • building online relationships for social and global business development.
  Political: Encourage the Federal Government to reframe its Taxation and Industry Policies to take account of the Global Information Economy.
• Land and Agriculture Policy Centre - Publications, links and research projects on South African rural and agricultural policy issues. The Land and Agriculture Policy Centre is a section 21, not-for-profit company which contributes to sustainable rural development by providing innovative participatory policy analysis and research in the areas of land, agriculture, rural development, and natural resource management in the interests of the rural poor.
• Mondragon Corporation, Spain - It was chosen by the United Nations as one of the top 50 social-economic innovations in the world.
• A Reasoned Description of What has Happened to the Animated Film Industry in LA from 1984 to the Present - It is concluded herein that several coinciding events have combined to produce a before now unexpected alteration in both the industry's present employment relations within the region as well as in its prospects for maintaining heightened competitive advantage and a high quality of employment in the future.
• Empirical Evidence of Regional Growth: The Centre-Periphery Discussion - The discussion about regional growth, rivalry between centre and periphery, and expectations about convergence or divergence is entangled in conceptual complexity. To better understand these discussions, clarity on at least two aspects is needed. First, a distinction has to be made between absolute growth, i.e. growth in sheer numbers of jobs, people or production, and relative growth, i.e. growth of one variable relative to another variable, such as the growth of income per capita. And, second, especially in theoretical debates, one has to be very clear about the spatial scale on which these issues are discussed, i.e. intra-metropolitan, interregional or international.
• Growth and Agglomeration - We start from two stylized facts: (i) the positive correlation between agglomeration and growth of economic activities; (ii) the strong resemblance between the geography of production and the geography of innovation.
• LETSystems - the Home Page - Local Exchange Trading Systems
• Centre for Economic Research - Tashkent, Uzbekistan - UNDP and the Uzbekistan government developed this site. It provides working papers on the economic situation and propects of this former USSR republic in Central Asia.
• Sustainable Economics - The bimonthly newsletter of the Economics Working Group of the UK Green Party.
• Farels - Presenting ideas to enhance human & natural environments using technology for a good life, peace and fair wealth distribution.
• Basic Income European Network
• The Fourth Story: Seeing The World From A Profoundly Different Viewpoint - The fourth story is based on the belief that humanity is living through the most radical shift in its history.
• Population as a Source of Economic Growth in Canada
• The Spaces and Moralities of the Special Areas Commission 1934-1939 - The Special Areas, designated industrial districts in the North of England and in South Wales, were the first attempt in Britain to devise regional policy.
• Conceptual Developments In Economic Development Theory (Review Article) - This article is based upon a book review of The Regional World: Territorial Development in a Global Economy by Michael Storper
• An Outsider Looks at Montreal's Economy
• Progress And Its Sustainability
• Wisdom And A Return To Values In The Attainment Of Sustainability
• The Changing Politics of Local Economic Development in the Russian Federation
• The Heartland Center for Leadership Development - Based in Nebraska, the Heartland Center was organized in 1985 by a group of Great Plains leaders as an outgrowth of Visions from the Heartland, a grassroots futures project. Today, the Center is known throughout North America for its field research on Clues to Rural Community Survival and for its hands-on programs in community leadership development.
• Sustainable Society
• What Comprises A Regional Innovation System? An Empirical Study
• Competitiveness, Sustainability, and the North American System of Innovation
• Taeduk Research park: Formation of spin-offs and local linkages
• People Centered Development Forum
• Sustainable Development And Innovation In North America
• Empirical Evidence of Regional Growth: The Centre-Periphery Discussion
• Development and Information Age
• Origins and Development of UK Economy
• The Emergence of the Region State - The changing nature of the global economy poses a profound challenge to the institutional frameworks of most nations and regions, as the rapid emergence and spread of new information and communications technologies alters the underlying structure of the industrial economies and integrates them into a globalized economy. These changes are modifying the distribution of political roles between the national, supra- and sub-national levels of governance. The postwar distribution of roles and responsibilities between the nation state and supra?national institutions was grounded in the Keynesian settlement and institutionalized through the compromise of "embedded liberalism", embodied in the Bretton Woods Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. As the underpinnings of the postwar institutional order began to unravel in the 1970s, so too did the precarious balance it sustained between the national and supra-national levels of governance.
• Resilient Communities
• Universities And Enterprise Development On The Periphery Of Europe
• Sustainability of Human Progress
• Sustainable Design, Development, and Policy Resources on the Web
• HyperForum Resources - example forum: World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
• Welcome to Institute for Local Self Reliance (ILSR)
• WebEc - Regional Economics
• Economy of the Great Lakes Region
• Regional Economics, Demographics, and Statistics
• Global Crisis - Sustainability
• Designing a Sustainable World Economics
• Regional Policy and SMEs - how information society services and applications (ISSA) may best contribute to territorial planning in the less favoured regions
• The Case for Regional Cooperation
• TVA Rural Studies
• Durability Will Provide Sustainable Luxury: Economics for Conservation
• Sustainability - A Choice to Consider
• Local Action For Economic Development In Indigenous Communities
• Innovation, Competitiveness And Sustainability In The North American Region
• Lifeplace or Marketplace?: Bioregions, Region States and the Contested Turf of Regionalism
• Growth Management
• Growth Pole Cycles
• Corporations and Sustainable Development
• Creating Quality Community

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