Browsing by Subject "Urban geography"
Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Business community structures and urban regimes: A comparative analysis(Journal of Urban Affairs, 2007) de Socio, MarkRegime theorists often present business interests as coherent and unified communities with unitary interests. A central principle of regime theory, however, is that business elites tend to occupy privileged positions within regime coalitions because of the scope of resources and expertise they command and cities require for economic development and/or fiscal solvency. Cities are generally home to a wide range of business activities operating at various scales, and business elites representing various corporations in different economic sectors arguably command different kinds of resources and expertise that are functional to the economic activities with which they are affiliated. Various mixes of business elites representing different economic activities might therefore produce differentially biased input regarding urban policy-making and affect the types of regime coalitions that cities develop. Utilizing compilations of interlocking directorates among major organizations across three sectors, profiles of the corporate and social community structures of 24 U.S. cities are generated and a correlation matrix comprised of business and social organizational categories is produced. Factor analysis of the correlation matrix identifies three separate mixes of corporate and social organizational categories that generally conform to descriptions of developmental, caretaker, and progressive regime typologies. These three factors serve as prototypes of the three broad regime types and their corporate community structures. Correlations of the 24 cities with each of the three regime prototypes generally match their regime types as identified through previous case studies. Variations in regime types among cities might therefore be attributed to varying degrees of diversity in the kinds of corporations headquartered or located within them. Closer attention to the economic base of cities—the producers, after all, of local business elites—may reveal internal biases and/or material predisposition towards some urban policies over others by local business elites in relation to the economic activities with which they are linked.Item Marginalization of sunset firms in regime coalitions: A social network analysis(Regional Studies, 2010) de Socio, MarkMarginalization of sunset firms in regime coalitions: a social network analysis, Regional Studies. Business leaders and organizations are central to the formation and maintenance of urban regimes. Business communities are not monolithic, however, and they vary in their composition of economic activities and industry sectors, and in the resources they command. Differentiation in business community resources has implications for regime networks, particularly in cities where large percentages of their economic base are comprised of industries in decline. Utilizing social network analysis, this paper finds that business leaders associated with traditional manufacturing are marginalized within the prevailing regime networks of two United States ‘rustbelt’ cities in favour of leaders associated with newer, more stable, industries.Item Regime network restructuring in Akron, Ohio, 1975-2009: A longitudinal social network analysis(Growth and Change, 2012) de Socio, MarkThe purpose of this paper is to explore the impacts of extra-local economic and political forces on the business community participants of the governing regime coalition in Akron, Ohio, and in turn, how other regime partners responded to and engaged with the changing constitution of Akron’s business community. Unlike the UK where municipalities receive substantial fiscal support from regional and national governments, American cities are more readily forced into regime partnerships with other public and private actors for fiscal solvency, including, primarily, the local business community. In the case of Akron, the local business community experienced a prolonged and ongoing period of comprehensive deindustrialization and economic restructuring, forcing the city into partnerships with less traditional non-private sector actors as Akron’s business community structure continues to transform. A secondary objective is to forward the utility of social network analysis in regime theory applications. Social network analysis offers a way to situate arguably the most influential actors in a regime coalition. Utilizing the directories of Standard and Poor’s Index of Corporations and Directors from 1975 through 2006, social network analysis is performed on the interlocking network of corporations and civic organizations based in Akron for each decade, allowing a longitudinal view of the changing business community partners of Akron’s governing coalition.Item Universities and hospitals as agents of economic stability and growth in small cities: A comparative analysis(The Industrial Geographer, 2014) Parrillo, Adam J; de Socio, MarkInstitutions of higher education and health care (‘Eds and Meds’) have become increasingly recognized as stable centers of employment and important contributors to urban economic development. Existing research into the contributions of Eds and Meds on regional economies focus primarily on large research-based universities and health care facilities based in larger cities. These institutions and the cities in which they are based offer significant resources like access to global streams of financial and intellectual capital. In contrast, smaller teaching-based institutions of higher education and service-oriented health care facilities are largely overlooked, presumably because a lack of significant research monies would mean limited impacts in the regional economy. However, any cursory look at the economic base of various smaller cities and regional centers in the U.S. would indicate that the stature of non-research health care and higher education institutions are likewise growing in importance for regional economies. The purpose of this paper is to trace the rise of health care and higher education as agents of economic stability and growth, and their spatial impacts on urban land use, in two smaller regional centers, namely Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Salisbury, Maryland – two cities with different cultural and economic histories whose economic trajectories nevertheless are converging in which Eds and Meds play an increasingly prominent role.