Services and the new economic landscape

The growth of the service economy in advanced and developing economies has created what are now being referred to as New Economic Landscapes. These landscapes are not only built forms, they are job generators and new sources of economic power for the regions that house them. This service economy is variegated, with differing sources of demand, and varying geographies of supply. A dynamic element in this mileaux is the evolving producer service complex--an amalgum of financial, business, legal, and professional services, which have had rapid expansion in most parts of the global economy. Existing conceptual paradigms in regional science have not fully acknowledged the manifold importances of The New Economic Landscape--they have essentially danced around it. In this paper we zero in on the central role of services, as well as primary and secondary industries, in the current economic era, relating on the one hand the expansion of information-oriented producer services to patterns of evolution in goods producing primary and secondary industries, as well as placing these dynamic producer service sectors in context of the ongoing expansion of the larger service sector. The goal of this paper is to make clear the regional development implications of the complex processes of service industry development occuring globally, while simultaneously speaking to the implications of this transformation for regions and theory in regional science. In this regard we build on recent conceptualizations of the role of industrial and information networks, economic underpinnings of regional economies, new perspectives on entrepreneurial activity, and behaviors which we have documented are important to the success of service industries on the New Economic Landscape. In doing so, we take advantage of and extend conceptualizations which have been developed largely in management science as they bear on firm-level performance, and marry these ideas with the emerging literature on the importance of the vital position of regions in the so-called global economy.

Service Industries and Employment Growth in the Nonmetro South: A Geographical Perspective

Service employment has grown rapidly in the nonmetro South in recent years, accounting for 87 percent of overall job growth in the 1985-1995 time period. This pace has been sustained in nonmetro areas that are adjacent to metro areas, as well as in more remote nonmetro areas that are not adjacent to metro areas. Retail, health, and producer services account for the largest share of service employment growth. In contrast to the United States as a whole, which experienced declines in manufacturing employment, the nonmetro South has had increases in manufacturing employment. This growth of manufacturing has stimulated the local service sector through multiplier relationships associated with the expenditure of income earned in manufacturing. Within the nonmetro South there has been more rapid growth east of the Mississippi River than in regions west of it. The role of services in southern nonmetro job growth must be recognized in economic development programs. Field-based research is needed to document whether job growth in services in the nonmetro South has been stimulated by growing levels of interregional trade in these services, as has been documented in other regions of the United States. There is also a need to document relationships between the growth of nonearnings income and services employment growth in the nonmetro South

Deindustrialization and the Polarization of Household Incomes: The Example of Urban Agglomerations in Germany

The tertiarization, or perhaps more accurately, the deindustrialization of the economy has left deep scars on cities. It is evident not only in the industrial wastelands and empty factory buildings scattered throughout the urban landscape, but also in the income and social structures of cities. Industrialization, collective wage setting and the welfare state led to a stark reduction in income differences over the course of the twentieth century. Conversely, deindustrialization and the shift to tertiary sectors could result in increasing wage differentiation. Moreover, numerous studies on global cities, the dual city, and divided cities have also identified income polarization as a central phenomenon in the development of major cities. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we find an increasing polarization of household income structures since the mid-1990. In agglomerations, this income polarization is even more pronounced than in the more rural regions. The income polarization in Germany is likely to have multiple causes, some of which are directly linked to policies such as the deregulation of the labor market. But extensive deindustrialization is probably also one of the drivers, that has led directly to the weakening of middle income groups

Cultural and Recreational Industries in Rural America: Opportunities for State Legislators

The consumption of cultural and recreational activities is rising nationally, and there are opportunities for their supply in both rural and urban areas. In this brief paper I suggest five ways state legislators can help support rural communities’ efforts to develop local cultural and recreational opportunities: through environmental quality improvement and protection, through the development of supporting high quality infrastructure, through marketing and promotion, through training that helps rural residents develop the skills needed in recreational and cultural industries, and through help in the assessment of culture and recreation industry development opportunities

Employment Growth in the Rural West From 1985 to 1995 Outpaced the Nation

Employment growth was much stronger in the rural West between 1985 and 1995 than it was in all U.S. rural areas and in the United States as a whole. Although the bulk of this job growth was in services, the rural West gained manufacturing jobs, as was the case elsewhere in the rural United States. Counties adjacent to metro areas grew more rapidly than those not adjacent, with employment gains led by health services, producer services, and retailing