Apologies for cross-posting…
SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS
Cities, Regions, States
AAG Las Vegas, USA 22nd-27th March 2009
Organiser: John Harrison, Loughborough University
Despite a rich scientific history, the ‘city-region’ concept has been enjoying
something of a revival over the past decade. Divorced from views that
predicted the ‘death of distance’ and the ‘end of geography’ the re-emergence
of city-regions has reinforced the importance of dense nodes of economic and
social activity within an increasingly globalized world. In such studies, it has
been deemed that city-regions are coming to function as the basic motors of
the global economy. More recently, however, these accounts have been the
subject of much debate.
Andrew Jonas and Kevin Ward’s (2007) work, for instance, describes how
academic discourses pertaining to a new city-regionalism are narrowly
constructed around the economic logic for city-regions, and argues the case
for a new politics of city-regionalism. Alongside this, some have described the
weaknesses present in the economics of city-regions (Harrison, 2007) while
others have called for considerably more economics in the political-economy of
city-regions (Harding, 2007). The nature of current debate thus appears to be
polarised around the need for ‘more economics’ or ‘more politics’ in the new
city-regionalism.
Opening the way for potentially fruitful discussions on the political-economy of
city-regions, these sessions will enquire into the value of calls for ‘more
economics’ or ‘more politics’ in the new city-regionalism. In particular they will
explore the potential for, and barriers to, integrating the political and
economic logics for city-region development.
Papers are invited that attempt to understand the political-economy of city-
regions, as well as more provocative think-pieces which challenge or defend
conceptualising city-regions from a political-economic perspective.
Potential topics/themes of interest might include (but are not limited to):
* Papers that interrogate the relationship between cities, regions, and the
state;
* Theoretically informed case studies which explore the political-economy of
city-regions;
* Perspectives on the need (or not) to reconceptualise city-regions;
* Theoretical interventions and/or empirical studies that advance new ways of
conceptualising city-regions;
* Examples of (non-)successful attempts to conjoin the economics of city-
regions with the politics of city-regionalism.
* Moving beyond the new city-regionalism
Expressions of interest from potential contributors should be sent to John
Harrison ([log in to unmask]) in the form of an abstract acceptable to
the AAG ( http://www.aag.org/annualmeetings/2009/papers.htm#abstracts )
by Friday 3rd October 2008.
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