Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Metropolitan Area 1979 1989 1999 2006
2011
New York 0.353 0.385 0.475 0.499 0.507
Boston 0.399 0.449 0.413 0.461 0.477
Philadelphia 0.327 0.341 0.419 0.461 0.472
Providence 0.394 0.427 0.424 0.440 0.463
Baltimore 0.391 0.412 0.405 0.437 0.452
Hartford 0.355 0.421 0.399 0.438 0.456
Washington 0.367 0.380 0.379 0.434
0.438
United States 0.404 0.431 0.458 0.470 0.475
Source: 1979 and 1989 metropolitan Gini indices from Madden, 2000, 1999 metropolitan Gini
indices from Lopez, 2004 (data published online, www.diversitydata.org) and 2006 and 2011
metropolitan Gini indices and U.S.'s indices from the US Census Bureau.
Fig. 18.9
Gini Index of household income inequality in the US and for metropolitan areas of over
one million in population in the Megalopolis
response to a convergence of several factors—namely a combination of new
transport, logistical, information and knowledge technologies which, in the
context of institutional innovations exemplified by open trade regimes and
financial innovations, lead to globalization. A global organization of the produc-
tion system, whose geography changes frequently in response to shifting factor
prices, has emerged.
What
gets produced,
how
it is produced, and
where
it is
produced change often.
In this period,
some
urban regions in the Megalopolis have reversed their
economic decline and indeed, have begun to exhibit vibrant, resurgent economies.
Such urban areas exhibit a major economic transition, a discontinuity, a transition
from a mature industrial urban region to a newer region, being propelled by new
information and knowledge technologies that are transforming their production
and service activities. This evolution is towards a Knowledge Economy, towards
an entrepreneurial creative urban region, where value derives from knowledge.
Such urban regions offer locales and contexts for information and knowledge
flows and cross-fertilization—supporting the generation and implementation of a
variety of economic and social innovations that undergird the new urban creativity
and entrepreneurialism.
The contemporary Boston Region offers a good example of such a metropolis
which was a pioneer of the American Industrial revolution in the nineteenth
century, and remained a major industrial center for over a century, only to
witness the flight of its manufacturing capacity (and employment) to low cost
labor locations—enduring thereby a multiple-decade urban decline. However, in
the last quarter century or so, Boston has arrested this long decline and has
reinvented itself as an entrepreneurial knowledge economy, focusing on
knowledge-intensive production and services—Biotechnology, Scientific
instruments, Software, Finance services, Producer services, Medical and
