Research Brief on ETI Purchasing Power and Economic Drilldowns

To help identify the economic assets of central city neighborhoods and to further employment opportunities for city residents the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Employment and Training Institute prepared summary data on the workforce residing in and employed in each census tract, along with state-of-the-art purchasing power estimates of consumer expenditures and retail sales leakage/surplus by neighborhood. The ETI drill downs were designed to help determine the diversity of the workforce and to further economic development for underserved communities and for underutilized minority populations. Samples of ETI research reports using the drill downs are archived in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Digital Commons collection

From cultural quarters to creative clusters – creative spaces in the new city economy

Copyright @ 2009 Institute of Urban HistoryInstitute of Urban History, Stockhol

The Rise of Innovation Districts: A New Geography of Innovation in America

As the United States slowly emerges from the great recession, a remarkable shify is occurring in the spatial geogrpahy of innovation. For the past 50 years, the landscape of innovation has been dominated by places like Silicon Valley - suburban corridors of spatially isolated corporate campuses, accessible only by car, with little emphasis on the quality of life or on integrating work, housing, and recreation. A new complementary urban model is now emerging, giving rise to what we and others are calling "innovation districts." These districts, by our definition, are geographic areas where leading-edge anchor institutions and companies cluster and connect with start-ups, business incubators, and accelerators. They are also physically compact, transit-accessible, and technicall

Open Innovation, Soft Branding and Green Influencers: Critiquing 'Fast Fashion' and 'Overtourism'

This paper explores digital reality replication for cultural consumption and green-digital open-system innovation, along with responsible, sustainable practices fashioned in a post-COVID-19 era. We address these after the dystopian effects of lockdown on global tourism and, in particular, the looming crisis of unsustainable 'overtourism'. The aim of this paper is to disclose problems and policies related to moderating consumption to more sustainable levels. The scope of the article tackles three fields: urban re-branding, fast fashion, and overtourism. Each problem area is analysed against the background of digital surveillance in the attention economy with the aid of a conceptual model. Accordingly, the principal objectives of this paper are to analyse key sustainability problem sources, evolutionary processes, and policy responses. The paper's originality and value lie in its recognition of tractable problem engagement through conceptual and practicable methods. This contribution also explores other consumption modes that tourists appreciate, namely, retail activity and its unsustainable "fast fashion" obsession. Finally, the paper analyses urban soft branding, the third tourism attractor within the niche touristic activity of the creative-cultural and gastronomic kind, which also features impulses that affect the perpetuation of unsustainable touristic practices. Thus, this contribution also assesses various studies on tourism futures that exploit digital media to assist in conserving both natural and cultural environments. Accordingly, we first narrate the soft re-branding of an "Art City" as a "Fashion City" and consider the example of green-digital innovation in the cultural milieu of Florence, Italy, in light of criticism of the unsustainability of "fast fashion". We consider which actions are envisioned or advised in the similarly "over-touristed" city of Venice. In a different vein, we consider whether the mobilisation of 'pop celebrity' performers such as audience engagers or influencers works for sustainable intervention through an assessment of the cultural interventions of Madonna in Lisbon. Finally, we anatomise "green" politics and policies for creative-cultural cities with the support of digital media to influence sustainable actions to moderate or, alternatively, revitalise polluted, congested, or otherwise over-touristed city centres. The greening of central Paris, Barcelona, Milan, and London offer a a series of examples of this type of moderation and revitalisation. Keywords: digital reproduction; open innovation; lockdown; overtourism; soft branding; influencer

Retailing, Consumers, and Territory: Trends of an Incipient Circular Model

The aim of this theoretical research is to analyze the state of retail distribution nowadays, reviewing the dynamics of action that contribute to the move from a linear to an incipient circular retail model. The framework is based on the Retail Wheel Spins Theory and the Retail Life Cycle (RLC), with an extra review of Bauman’s liquid metaphor. We consider two questions. Firstly, are offline retailers ready to disappear as online commerce and digital marketing aggressively break into the retail industry? Secondly, could commercial spaces (in the fifth stage in the evolution of retail and territory) be in the decline stage in the RLC in the near future or can a circular connection take place? Thus, a desk research methodology based on secondary documentary material and sources issued leads to an interpretive analysis that reveals ten trends (e.g., solid retail vs. liquid retail; glocal retail; food sovereignty) and a wide diversity of changes that could involve offline stores recovering territory and entering a circular phase. Our findings suggest that digitalized physical stores are flourishing and our reflections augur changes in pace and the closure of the linear business cycle to recover territory, the city, its local market, and its symbolism, as well as a liquid business steeped in omnichannel formats developing an incipient circular movement. Conclusions indicate that it is possible to perceive a timid change back to territory and retail spaces which, along with phygitalization, will coexist with the digital world