As in previous years, the RSA will have again a strong presence at the AAG with annual lectures for our journals (Regional Studies; Area Development and Policy; and Territory, Governance, Politics), 14 Economic Geography sessions, sessions organised by the RSA Research Network on Finance Geography (held at MIT), several sessions organised by RSA members and an exhibition stand which is part of the Routledge stand (#100). So see you in Boston!
AREA DEVELOPMENT AND POLICY – Annual Lecture
Title: Regional development in an era of slow global economic growth
[Thursday, 4/6/2017, from 10:00 AM – 11:40 AM in Room 200, Hynes, Second Level]
Introduction and Chair: Weidong Liu – Chinese Academy of Sciences
Panelist: Gordon L. Clark – Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment
Discussant(s): Eric S. Sheppard – UCLA and George C.S. Lin – University of Hong Kong
To address the challenges faced by regions, this plenary session will invite Prof. Gordon Clark from Oxford University to deliver a themed talk on regional development in an era of slow global economic growth. The global financial crisis, the Euro crisis, BREXIT and slowing Asian economic growth all have significant impacts on region development all over the world. Prof. Clark will try to explain how and why nation-states have run out of fiscal capacity and monetary policy, and face extraordinary pressures to rein-in credit and borrowing. His questions include: how are regions to cope with these forces? Will global integration via networks of exchange make-up the difference or might those networks also be drawn into the orbit of their nation-states (for some regions, but not all regions)? Are there two paths to the future – one a race to the top, the other a race to the bottom? How can we facilitate the race to the top wherein regions take-over as the engines of global economic growth bypassing the paralysis evident in nation-states and trading blocs?
TERRITORY, POLITICS, GOVERNANCE – Annual Lecture
Title: Imagining the Post-Fossil City – Why is it so difficult to think of new possible worlds?
[Thursday, 4/6/2017, from 3:20 PM – 5:00 PM in Constitution A, Sheraton, Second Floor]
Introduction and Chair: Martin Jones – University of Sheffield
Panelist: Maarten Hajer – Utrecht University
Discussant: David Wachsmuth – McGill University
Why is it so difficult to think of new possible urban futures? Countless papers and reports start with the reiteration that the trend towards urbanization will continue. ‘In 2050 up to 70% of the world’s population is expected to live in cities.’ While recognizing this macro-trend it is clear that building cities according to the principles that emerged over the 20th Century, with a dominant role for auto-mobility, and widely dispersed ‘enclavism’, will lead to an environmental disaster. Yet the transition to ‘post-fossil urbanization’ is slow in coming. Prof. Hajer argues that this has to do with the fact that we lack new imaginaries, new appealing conceptions of future city life. In his talk, he will reflect on the question why we have lost the capacity to imagine alternative urban futures. Learning from the literature on Science Fiction and practices like ‘research by design’ Hajer aims to recoup our capacity to think of alternative possible worlds.
REGIONAL STUDIES Regional Studies – Annual Lecture
Title: Meeting the Challenge of Social and Regional Inequality: How Coordinated Market Economies Link Innovation and Welfare
[Friday, 4/7/2017, from 3:20 PM – 5:00 PM in Independence West, Sheraton, Second Floor]
Introduction and Chair: Dieter Franz Kogler – University College Dublin
Panelist: Bjorn T. Asheim- University of Stavanger, Norway and Lund University, Sweden
Discussant: Helen Lawton Smith – Birkbeck University of London
People in the contemporary Western world are suffering from two interconnected problems: a low rate of economic growth and a distribution of this more limited growth that is regionally and socially unequal. These problems are interconnected as they are rooted in the same political and ideological morass of the neo-liberalist regime of deregulation and liberalisation of the 1980s. Historically, innovation has been the most important source for increased productivity and value creation, and, thus, for making societies wealthier. When combined with the welfare policies of European coordinated market economies, this wealth has been fairly evenly distributed regionally and socially. Agents generating this growth have traditionally been Schumpeter’s Mark I entrepreneurs and his Mark II big corporations, often in close cooperation with national governments, which has characterised the Nordic countries. Today entrepreneurs create disruptive innovations, which only make themselves richer but not their host societies, and the big corporations are more and more focused on tax evasion, share buyback and other short-term activities, instead of investing their profits in innovation to secure future competitiveness. As a consequence, the underlying rate of innovation has slowed down, with lower productivity and value creation as a result.
What can a proactive innovation policy do to solve these problems, and what kinds of organisational and institutional innovations are needed to implement such a policy? How can policy not only solve the growth problem but the distributional problem as well? I shall argue that the answer is to be found in the coordinated market economies, where policies that shape innovation and welfare are strongly interlinked. The lecture aims at presenting such an agenda, inspired and informed by the innovation and welfare policies of the Nordic countries in general, and Sweden specifically.
RSA RESEARCH NETWORK EVENT
Research Network on Finance Geography: Finance, Geography and Sustainability: Lessons for Urban Planning, Development and Beyond
Monday, 4/3/2017 8:00 AM – 4/4/2017 4:00 PM in Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue Room 9-255 Cambridge, MA 02139 United States]
ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY SESSIONS
Structure, networks, evolution & policy
The series of “Economic Geography” special sessions features theoretical and empirical research papers under the heading ‘Structure, Networks, Evolution & Policy’. The various sessions highlight such topics, including innovation space, networks, policy, economic development, knowledge creation, relatedness, specialization, institutions, trade, resilience, and regional growth.
Economic Geography I – Relatedness, Evolution and Path-Creation; an Alternative Approach [Wednesday, 4/5/2017, 8:00 AM – 9:40 AM in Back Bay Ballroom A, Sheraton, 2nd Floor]
Economic Geography II – Knowledge and Product Spaces, Smart Specialization, and the Evolution of Economies [Wednesday, 4/5/2017, 10:00 AM – 11:40 AM in Back Bay Ballroom A, Sheraton, 2nd Floor]
Economic Geography III – Planning, Policy, Institutions, and Economic Performance [Wednesday, 4/5/2017, 12:40 AM – 2:20 PM in Back Bay Ballroom A, Sheraton, 2nd Floor]
Economic Geography IV – Investment, Firms, Skills, and Regional Resilience [Wednesday, 4/5/2017, 2:40 PM – 4:20 PM in Back Bay Ballroom A, Sheraton, 2nd Floor]
Economic Geography V – Intersections, Relations, Routines, and Collaborations in Innovation Processes [Wednesday, 4/5/2017, 4:40 PM – 6:20 PM in Back Bay Ballroom A, Sheraton, 2nd Floor]
Economic Geography VI – Knowledge & Technology in a Regional and Sectoral Context [Thursday, 4/6/2017, 8:00 AM – 9:40 AM in Back Bay Ballroom A, Sheraton, 2nd Floor]
Economic Geography VII – Technological Diffusion and the Economic Geography of New Production Spaces [Thursday, 4/6/2017, 10:00 AM – 11:40 AM in Back Bay Ballroom A, Sheraton, 2nd Floor]
Economic Geography VIII – The History of Creativity and Innovation and the Role of Agglomeration and Urbanization Economies [Thursday, 4/6/2017, 1:20 PM – 3:00 PM in Back Bay Ballroom A, Sheraton, 2nd Floor]
Economic Geography IX – Novelty, Access, Diffusion and Networks in Regional and Sectoral Development [Thursday, 4/6/2017, 3:20 PM – 5:00 PM in Back Bay Ballroom A, Sheraton, 2nd Floor]
Economic Geography X – Evolution, Creativity, Growth and Impact [Friday, 4/7/2017, 8:00 AM – 9:40 AM in Back Bay Ballroom A, Sheraton, 2nd Floor]
Economic Geography XI – Institutions and Framework Conditions in Support of Entrepreneurship and Innovation [Friday, 4/7/2017, 10:00 AM – 11:40 AM in Back Bay Ballroom A, Sheraton, 2nd Floor]
Economic Geography XII – Evolution, Path-Creation, and the Quest for Smart Development Opportunities [Friday, 4/7/2017, 1:20 PM – 3:00 PM in Back Bay Ballroom A, Sheraton, 2nd Floor]
Economic Geography XIII – Migration, Labor Mobility and Wages – Outlook and Gaps [Friday, 4/7/2017, 3:20 PM – 5:00 PM in Back Bay Ballroom A, Sheraton, 2nd Floor]
Economic Geography XIV – Innovation and Learning in Core and Peripheral Regions, Cohesion and Brexit [Friday, 4/7/2017, 5:20 PM – 7:00 PM in Back Bay Ballroom A, Sheraton, 2nd Floor]
RSA MEMBERS’ SESSIONS
David Bassens- Free University of Brussels
European Financial Geographies in Flux I [Wednesday, 4/5/2017, from 10:00 AM – 11:40 AM in Tremont, Marriott, First Floor]
European Financial Geographies in Flux II [Wednesday, 4/5/2017, from 12:40 PM – 2:20 PM in Tremont, Marriott, First Floor]
European Financial Geographies in Flux III [Wednesday, 4/5/2017, from 2:40 PM – 4:20 PM in Tremont, Marriott, First Floor]
European Financial Geographies in Flux IV [Wednesday, 4/5/2017, from 4:40 PM – 6:20 PM in Tremont, Marriott, First Floor]
Stuart Dawley – CURDS, Newcastle University
Extra-regional dynamics of territorial development I: Placing Networks [Wednesday, 4/5/2017, from 8:00 AM – 9:40 AM in Harvard, Marriott, Third Floor]
Extra-regional dynamics of territorial development II: Innovation and Transition [Wednesday, 4/5/2017, from 10:00 AM – 11:40 AM in Harvard, Marriott, Third Floor]
Extra-regional dynamics of territorial development III: Strategic Couplings [Wednesday, 4/5/2017, from 12:40 PM – 2:20 PM in Harvard, Marriott, Third Floor]
Extra-regional dynamics of territorial development IV: Path Creation and Regional Development [Wednesday, 4/5/2017, from 2:40 PM – 4:20 PM in Harvard, Marriott, Third Floor]
Extra-regional dynamics of territorial development: towards a new agenda? [Wednesday, 4/5/2017, from 4:40 PM – 6:20 PM in Harvard, Marriott, Third Floor]
Emil Evenhuis- University of Cambridge
City Economic Evolutions: Coping with Structural Change [Thursday, 4/6/2017, from 10:00 AM – 11:40 AM in Regis, Marriott, Third Floor]
City Economic Evolutions: Relational Perspectives [Thursday, 4/6/2017, from 1:20 PM – 3:00 PM in Regis, Marriott, Third Floor]
City Economic Evolutions: Demographic Factors and the Role of Planning [Thursday, 4/6/2017, from 3:20 PM – 5:00 PM in Regis, Marriott, Third Floor]
David C. Gibbs – University of Hull
Going Round in (Perfect) Circles? Exploring the Circular Economy [Wednesday, 4/5/2017, from 12:40 PM – 2:20 PM in Room 310, Hynes, Third Level]
Going Round in (Perfect) Circles? Exploring the Circular Economy [Wednesday, 4/5/2017, from 2:40 PM – 4:20 PM in Room 310, Hynes, Third Level]
Helen Lawton Smith – Birkbeck University of London
Placing the Politics of Skill II [Thursday, 4/6/2017, from 3:20 PM – 5:00 PM in Brandeis, Marriott, Third Floor]
Weidong Liu – Chinese Academy of Sciences
Uncomfortable theoretical fit–Debating the China model: which frame and what future? (II) [Friday, 4/7/2017, from 3:20 PM – 5:00 PM in Jefferson, Sheraton, Third Floor]
Andy Pike- CURDS, Newcastle University
City Economic Evolutions: Coping with Structural Change [Thursday, 4/6/2017, from 10:00 AM – 11:40 AM in Regis, Marriott, Third Floor]
City Economic Evolutions: Relational Perspectives [Thursday, 4/6/2017, from 1:20 PM – 3:00 PM in Regis, Marriott, Third Floor]
CURDS 40th Anniversary – urban and regional development: retrospect and prospect [Thursday, 4/6/2017, from 8:00 AM – 9:40 AM in New Hampshire, Marriott, Fifth Floor]