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RESEARCHING SYNEKISM The Stimulus of Urban Agglomeration LSE - URC Informal Discussions 24 October 2007

STARTING POINTS  Recent discovery that cities have a powerful generative effect on society  This stimulus or urban agglomeration or synekism, as I have called it, is now considered by geographical economists and others to be the primary generative force behind capitalist economic development  Synekism arises from the spatial specificity of urbanism and is becoming recognized as a causal factor in all aspects of societal development over time.

SYNEKISM GENERATES…  1. Positive forces of economic development, organizational efficiency, artistic creativity, technological innovation  2. Negative forces creating hierarchies of power, inequality, injustice, social polarization, environmental degradation  3. These powerful positive and negative effects are not just happening in the present but have been there since the earliest permanent urban settlements, at least 12,000 years ago.

WE KNOW VERY LITTLE ABOUT SYNEKISM  Research still in its earliest stages  Mainly at a stage of confident recognition-comparable to early moments in the discovery of quantum mechanics, continental drift, Freudian psychoanalysis  Will be a major agenda item for interdisciplinary research in the 21st century  Must expand beyond the preserve of geographical economists

GENERATING RESEARCH QUESTIONS/HYPOTHESES We know that agglomeration is the key factor, that it is more than just density or proximity or intensity of co-present or F2F social interaction, or heterogeneity, specialization, interdependence. s How do these factors inter-relate? s Does size matter? Do larger agglomerations generate more than smaller ones? s Why/how do some aggs generate more than others? s How can we stimulate positive and

SPATIAL CAPITAL? We know, largely from Marshall, that economic synekism comes in two forms: localization efficiencies from shared proximate inputs and output markets, labor pooling, and other cost savings reinvested in greater productivity; and urbanization economies that are softer and harder to measure, relate to untraded interdependencies and social capital, to innovativeness and regional specific assets, to new ideas Current debates on the relative importance of

NEGATIVE EFFECTS  Globalization, economic restructuring, and new ICT technologies have been generating (through increasing urbanization) widening income gaps between rich and poor, intensified cultural and political polarization, worldwide environmental degradation, and growing poverty.  Some of the worst negative effects occurs in areas of most rapid wealth expansion, from Los Angeles and New York to Ireland and China  Contemporary research on synekism must not

SYNEKISM +/Urban and regional development theory have in the past focused on the interdependence of positive and negative effects, but these lessons are often forgoetten by current researchers. ---Underdevelopment, dependency, and related core-periphery theories of uneven development ---Myrdal-Hirschmann-Perroux ideas about spread and backwash, trickling down and polarization.

MORE HISTORICAL RESEARCH  What has blocked research on synekism over the past 150 years, since the origin of the social sciences and scientific socialism? The prevailing power of social historicism?  Why is synekism being rediscovered now? What has been the effect of the so-called spatial turn?

CITY OF LONDON PROJECTS  Hypothesis 1: The City has proportionally weaker positive spillover effects in the London region than similar financial concentrations in Paris or Tokyo or Franfurt  Hypothesis 2: Wealth that is funneled into property ownership and development weakens positive synekism/generates negative synekism.  Hypothesis 3: Unconstrained City growth is connected to widening gaps between wealth and poverty both next door in London (Tower Hamlets) and regionally within England

THE CITY CONTINUED  Innovative policies need to be developed to deal with the super-rich as well as with the City itself, allegedly the most wealthgenerating square mile on earth.  This is not just a matter of raising taxes but more of raising consciousness about the social and spatial connections between wealth and poverty, the luxury flats along the Thames and the squeezing out of key workers. Recognizing partial responsibility is essential.  Much more empirical research is needed on

CREATIVE CITIES/ Hypotheses: ---Clusters of cultural or creative industries generate more wealth today than clusters of high-tech industries or FIRE aqctivities.  --Artistic and creative clusters have different dynamics or synekistic processes than profitmotivated economic clusters.  --Creative artists cluster for different reasons than business firms.  --Clustering together art galleries and museums will have significant and longlasting

MORE ON AGGLOMERATION  19th century Manchester and 20th century Los Angeles--agglomeration effects of the urban poor  Agglomeration and ---the Agricultural Revolution ---the emergence of the state ---the Industrial Revolution ---contemporary globalization and the urbanization of the world

A FEW MORE QUESTIONS  Size, scale, scope effects. When cities grow in size do they generate more? Are there diminishing returns to size?  Heterogeneity/specialization What are their relative importance? Do cities with a larger collection of high locational quotients gnerate more positive economic effects? Greater environmental degradation?  Compactness vs. sprawl  Cohesiveness of regional economies

JUST THE BEGINNING…

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