global connections tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2011-09-18:/shepp001/globalgeographies//14404 2011-09-18T18:25:42Z A globalizing world is neither shrinking nor flat. This blog will highlight emergent and unexpected connections, and their implications for uneven geographies of globalization Movable Type Enterprise 4.31-en China in the third Italy tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2011:/shepp001/globalgeographies//14404.308519 2011-09-18T18:07:54Z 2011-09-18T18:25:42Z In the 1980s, some clusters of economic activities (Marshallian industrial districts) gained much publicity for their ability to maintain a high road of prosperity, innovation and growth in the face of globalizing pressure to take the low road of poor... shepp001 In the 1980s, some clusters of economic activities (Marshallian industrial districts) gained much publicity for their ability to maintain a high road of prosperity, innovation and growth in the face of globalizing pressure to take the low road of poor wages. Drawing on local relational assets (culture, local networks, local governance, such places were lauded as the post-Fordist future for Europe and North America. One place in particular was studied as exemplary: Prato in northeastern Italy (the so-called third Italy):
Piore M and Sabel C. (1986) The Second Industrial Divide: Possibilities for prosperity, New York: Basic Books.
Scott AJ. (1988) New Industrial Spaces: Flexible production organization and regional development in North America and Western Europe, London: Pion.
Signorini L. (1994) The price of Prato, or measuring the industrial district effect. Papers in Regional Science 73: 369-392.
Storper M. (1997) The Regional World: Territorial development in a global economy, New York: Guilford.

Today's Prato is very different:
'Fast Fashion': Italians Wary Of Chinese On Their Turf

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