This paper examines the role of work at the cutting of technological change – frontier work – as ... more This paper examines the role of work at the cutting of technological change – frontier work – as a driver of prosperity and spatial income inequality. Using new methods and data, we analyze the geography and incomes of frontier workers from 1880 to 2019. Initially, frontier work is concentrated in a set of ‘seedbed’ locations, contributing to rising spatial inequality through powerful localized wage premiums. As technologies mature, the economic distinctiveness of frontier work diminishes, as ultimately happened to cities like Manchester and Detroit. Our work uncovers a plausible general origin story of the unfolding of spatial income inequality.
A vigorous debate has emerged in recent years over how to understand cities of the Global South. ... more A vigorous debate has emerged in recent years over how to understand cities of the Global South. A pivotal issue in this debate is whether urbanisation processes in the South are so fundamentally different from historical and current urbanisation in the Global North that many of the theories developed from studying the latter have limited utility in application to the former. In this article, we review evidence from a range of disciplines on recent and ongoing urban transitions and urbanisation dynamics in the Global South, attending to features that distinguish the urban South from the urban North. Our reading of the evidence indicates that parts of the Global South may be urbanising along historically and geographically specific trajectories; however, we argue that these differences are best understood through a unified set of global urban theories. Rather than flattening or silencing difference, theories that seek generalisation across time and space sharpen the identification an...
For most of the twentieth century, the Los Angeles region had one of the county’s best performing... more For most of the twentieth century, the Los Angeles region had one of the county’s best performing economies. But now, incomes of those in the San Francisco Bay area outpace those in LA by a third. In their new book, Michael Storper, Thomas Kemeny, Naji Makarem, & Taner Osman take a close look at how San Francisco has thrived while Los Angeles stagnated. They argue that the Bay Area created an ecosystem of invention and innovation that allowed Silicon Valley to arise and thrive, even as LA’s industries remained largely siloed.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2020
Significance Intergenerational social mobility in the United States has declined over the last ce... more Significance Intergenerational social mobility in the United States has declined over the last century, sparking a national debate about how to improve equality of opportunity. By analyzing data spanning the 20th century, we demonstrate strong temporal patterns operating across regions. Some areas of the United States have witnessed significant declines in social mobility, while others have had persistent low levels all along. Thus, the contemporary national picture is shaped by both powerful forces of change that reduce intergenerational mobility in some regions and deeply entrenched long-term forces generating persistence in others. It follows that improving social mobility will be challenging, as policy would need to respond to both forces and do so according to their varying mixture across different regions.
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 1981
The impact of performance regulations on industrial location in the USA or elsewhere has been lit... more The impact of performance regulations on industrial location in the USA or elsewhere has been little researched. This case study shows conventional assumptions to be questionable on two counts. First, industry appears not to consider local regulations until after selecting a site on more basic economic reasons. It assumes that regulations are not a significant barrier, owing to local eagerness to attract new growth. Second, the letter of the law is not the effect of the law, given the role of politics. In the case study described, opposition led to strict enforcement and the company's withdrawal, but a business backlash restored a more normal degree of governmental accommodation to industrial growth.
This paper examines the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and its related economic, fiscal, social ... more This paper examines the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and its related economic, fiscal, social and political fallout on cities and metropolitan regions. We assess the effect of the pandemic on urban economic geography at the intra- and inter-regional geographic scales in the context of four main forces: the social scarring instilled by the pandemic; the lockdown as a forced experiment; the need to secure the urban built environment against future risks; and changes in the urban form and system. At the macrogeographic scale, we argue the pandemic is unlikely to significantly alter the winner-take-all economic geography and spatial inequality of the global city system. At the microgeographic scale, however, we suggest that it may bring about a series of short-term and some longer-running social changes in the structure and morphology of cities, suburbs and metropolitan regions. The durability and extent of these changes will depend on the timeline and length of the pandemic.
This chapter reviews and critiques conventional ideas about the relationship of economics to geog... more This chapter reviews and critiques conventional ideas about the relationship of economics to geography and the implications for growth and development. While economic development occupies our collective imagination, the term is often not well defined, or defined in a limited manner that does not accommodate the full range of places faced with restructuring and economic uncertainty. All too often the emphasis is on innovation and entrepreneurship as ends to themselves rather than as a means to the end of widely shared prosperity and human fulfillment. This chapter summarizes recent work that differentiates economic development for economic growth, and provides a definition of economic development that argues for policy focused on building capacities in order to reduce the highly unequal social and geographical distributions that result from current frameworks.
Há um crescente debate nas últimas décadas sobre o alcance e a substância da teoria urbana. O deb... more Há um crescente debate nas últimas décadas sobre o alcance e a substância da teoria urbana. O debate tem sido marcado por muitas afirmações diferentes sobre a natureza das cidades, incluindo declarações de que o urbano é um conceito incoerente, que a sociedade urbana é nada menos do que a sociedade moderna como um todo, que a escala urbana não pode mais ser separada da escala global, e que a teoria urbana até então tem sido profundamente viciada por sua concentração quase exclusiva nas cidades do Norte global. Este artigo fornece alguns pontos de esclarecimento às afirmações como estas. Todas as cidades podem ser entendidas em termos de um quadro teórico que combina dois processos principais, a saber, a dinâmica de aglomeração/polarização e o desdobramento de um nexo associado de localização, usos da terra e de interações humanas. Este mesmo quadro pode ser usado para identificar uma grande variedade de cidades e para distinguir os fenômenos intrinsecamente urbanos do resto da reali...
This paper examines the role of work at the cutting of technological change – frontier work – as ... more This paper examines the role of work at the cutting of technological change – frontier work – as a driver of prosperity and spatial income inequality. Using new methods and data, we analyze the geography and incomes of frontier workers from 1880 to 2019. Initially, frontier work is concentrated in a set of ‘seedbed’ locations, contributing to rising spatial inequality through powerful localized wage premiums. As technologies mature, the economic distinctiveness of frontier work diminishes, as ultimately happened to cities like Manchester and Detroit. Our work uncovers a plausible general origin story of the unfolding of spatial income inequality.
A vigorous debate has emerged in recent years over how to understand cities of the Global South. ... more A vigorous debate has emerged in recent years over how to understand cities of the Global South. A pivotal issue in this debate is whether urbanisation processes in the South are so fundamentally different from historical and current urbanisation in the Global North that many of the theories developed from studying the latter have limited utility in application to the former. In this article, we review evidence from a range of disciplines on recent and ongoing urban transitions and urbanisation dynamics in the Global South, attending to features that distinguish the urban South from the urban North. Our reading of the evidence indicates that parts of the Global South may be urbanising along historically and geographically specific trajectories; however, we argue that these differences are best understood through a unified set of global urban theories. Rather than flattening or silencing difference, theories that seek generalisation across time and space sharpen the identification an...
For most of the twentieth century, the Los Angeles region had one of the county’s best performing... more For most of the twentieth century, the Los Angeles region had one of the county’s best performing economies. But now, incomes of those in the San Francisco Bay area outpace those in LA by a third. In their new book, Michael Storper, Thomas Kemeny, Naji Makarem, & Taner Osman take a close look at how San Francisco has thrived while Los Angeles stagnated. They argue that the Bay Area created an ecosystem of invention and innovation that allowed Silicon Valley to arise and thrive, even as LA’s industries remained largely siloed.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2020
Significance Intergenerational social mobility in the United States has declined over the last ce... more Significance Intergenerational social mobility in the United States has declined over the last century, sparking a national debate about how to improve equality of opportunity. By analyzing data spanning the 20th century, we demonstrate strong temporal patterns operating across regions. Some areas of the United States have witnessed significant declines in social mobility, while others have had persistent low levels all along. Thus, the contemporary national picture is shaped by both powerful forces of change that reduce intergenerational mobility in some regions and deeply entrenched long-term forces generating persistence in others. It follows that improving social mobility will be challenging, as policy would need to respond to both forces and do so according to their varying mixture across different regions.
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 1981
The impact of performance regulations on industrial location in the USA or elsewhere has been lit... more The impact of performance regulations on industrial location in the USA or elsewhere has been little researched. This case study shows conventional assumptions to be questionable on two counts. First, industry appears not to consider local regulations until after selecting a site on more basic economic reasons. It assumes that regulations are not a significant barrier, owing to local eagerness to attract new growth. Second, the letter of the law is not the effect of the law, given the role of politics. In the case study described, opposition led to strict enforcement and the company's withdrawal, but a business backlash restored a more normal degree of governmental accommodation to industrial growth.
This paper examines the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and its related economic, fiscal, social ... more This paper examines the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and its related economic, fiscal, social and political fallout on cities and metropolitan regions. We assess the effect of the pandemic on urban economic geography at the intra- and inter-regional geographic scales in the context of four main forces: the social scarring instilled by the pandemic; the lockdown as a forced experiment; the need to secure the urban built environment against future risks; and changes in the urban form and system. At the macrogeographic scale, we argue the pandemic is unlikely to significantly alter the winner-take-all economic geography and spatial inequality of the global city system. At the microgeographic scale, however, we suggest that it may bring about a series of short-term and some longer-running social changes in the structure and morphology of cities, suburbs and metropolitan regions. The durability and extent of these changes will depend on the timeline and length of the pandemic.
This chapter reviews and critiques conventional ideas about the relationship of economics to geog... more This chapter reviews and critiques conventional ideas about the relationship of economics to geography and the implications for growth and development. While economic development occupies our collective imagination, the term is often not well defined, or defined in a limited manner that does not accommodate the full range of places faced with restructuring and economic uncertainty. All too often the emphasis is on innovation and entrepreneurship as ends to themselves rather than as a means to the end of widely shared prosperity and human fulfillment. This chapter summarizes recent work that differentiates economic development for economic growth, and provides a definition of economic development that argues for policy focused on building capacities in order to reduce the highly unequal social and geographical distributions that result from current frameworks.
Há um crescente debate nas últimas décadas sobre o alcance e a substância da teoria urbana. O deb... more Há um crescente debate nas últimas décadas sobre o alcance e a substância da teoria urbana. O debate tem sido marcado por muitas afirmações diferentes sobre a natureza das cidades, incluindo declarações de que o urbano é um conceito incoerente, que a sociedade urbana é nada menos do que a sociedade moderna como um todo, que a escala urbana não pode mais ser separada da escala global, e que a teoria urbana até então tem sido profundamente viciada por sua concentração quase exclusiva nas cidades do Norte global. Este artigo fornece alguns pontos de esclarecimento às afirmações como estas. Todas as cidades podem ser entendidas em termos de um quadro teórico que combina dois processos principais, a saber, a dinâmica de aglomeração/polarização e o desdobramento de um nexo associado de localização, usos da terra e de interações humanas. Este mesmo quadro pode ser usado para identificar uma grande variedade de cidades e para distinguir os fenômenos intrinsecamente urbanos do resto da reali...
Urban studies today is marked by many active debates. In an earlier paper, we addressed some of ... more Urban studies today is marked by many active debates. In an earlier paper, we addressed some of these debates by proposing a foundational concept of urbanization and urban form as a way of identifying a common language for urban research. In the present paper we provide a brief recapitulation of that framework. We then use this preliminary material as background to a critique of three currently influential versions of urban analysis, namely, postcolonial urban theory, assemblage theoretic approaches, and planetary urbanism. We evaluate each of these versions in turn and find them seriously wanting as statements about urban realities. We criticize (a) postcolonial urban theory for its particularism and its insistence on the provincialization of knowledge, (b) assemblage theoretic approaches for their indeterminacy and eclecticism, and (c) planetary urbanism for its radical devaluation of the forces of agglomeration and nodality in urban-economic geography.
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Papers by Michael Storper