Regional autonomy in the global economy is a myth: regional economies and regional fortunes are shaped by a transational firm agenda to drive down costs while accessing skilled, flexible labor in and across regions.

Winner of the 2009 Regional Studies Association Best Book Award

Since the early 1980s, the region has been central to thinking about the emerging character of the global economy. In fields as diverse as business management, industrial relations, economic geography, sociology, and planning, the regional scale has emerged as an organizing concept for interpretations of economic change.

This book is both a critique of the "new regionalism" and a return to the "regional question," including all of its concerns with equity and uneven...

Arguing that American colonists who declared their independence in 1776 remained tied to England by both habit and inclination, Jennifer Clark traces the new Americans' struggle to come to terms with their loss of identity as British, and particularly English, citizens. Americans' attempts to negotiate the new Anglo-American relationship are revealed in letters, newspaper accounts, travel reports, essays, song lyrics, short stories and novels, which Clark suggests show them repositioning themselves in a transatlantic context newly defined by political revolution. Chapters examine political...

Working Regions focuses on policy aimed at building sustainable and resilient regional economies in the wake of the global recession. Using examples of four 'working regions' - regions where research and design functions and manufacturing still coexist in the same cities - the book argues for a new approach to regional economic development. It does this by highlighting policies that foster innovation and manufacturing in small firms, focus research centers on pushing innovation down the supply chain, and support dynamic, design-driven firm networks. This book traces several key themes...

This interdisciplinary volume provides a critical and multi-disciplinary review of current manufacturing processes, practices, and policies, and broadens our understanding of production and innovation in the world economy. Chapters highlight how firms and industries modify existing processes to produce for established and emerging markets through dynamic and design-driven strategies. This approach allows readers to view transformations in production systems and processes across sectors, technologies and industries. Contributors include scholars ranging from engineering to policy to economic...