At 14:39 30/06/2012, Mike Gurstein wrote:
Neither the Lombardy region of Italy (which is the classic regional
ecology area) nor Baden Wurttemmberg in Germany, the other classic
"innovation" region have sea coasts.
M
You're right. Concentrated manufacturing regions will usually have
easy access to shipping (coastline, or via canal or river) but not
necessarily so. There'll also be cases where the principal products
of a manufacturing region have a very high value/weight ratio (smart
phones for example) and thus will have relatively trivial unit
freight costs however transported (land, sea or air). However, most
modern manufacturing regions will still tend to be in those places
where traditional manufacturing started.
The same applies to the more modern phenomenon of super-metropolises.
These grow from previously highly successful cities and these, almost
always, will also be ports. But I can't think of more than about
three or four among today's 20-30 which are in a country's interior.
K
-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2012 6:30 AM
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION; michael gurstein
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Basque Economy Has Lessons for Spain (and elsewhere)
At 20:22 28/06/2012, Mike G wrote:
http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/analysis-basque-economy-lessons-spain-10564
8701--finance.html
Good article. The Basque region not only has lessons for Spain but
for all national governments. The optimal geographical regions for
manufacturing economies is usually far smaller than most
governments'. Typically the latter are the byproduct of
nationalistic warfare or civil war (or the drawing-up of artificial
boundaries by post-imperialists). As to the number of Basque-like
regions around the world, I would guess that there are probably
about 100 of these (with large countries such as America and China
having about half-a-dozen each), all of them with access to
coastlines and thus cheap oceanic transportation for their products.
Some of these have already been proceeding much further in the last
30 years or so into 20-30 super-metropolises, as automation cuts
into factory workforces and service-type value-creating occupations
abound as a proportion of the national economy. No country without
at least one of these super-metropolises can hope to have any sort
of bright economic future (in terms of notional GDP). The medium and
longer term implications for all this are far from clear, save to
say that attempts of nation-state governments in controlling their
economies will prove increasingly difficult. Indeed, we already have
the first indication of this in that almost all advanced
nation-state governments are so much in debt that they'll never be
able to repay those debts (and future commitments to welfare) from taxation.
Keith
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
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