Playing with the Rules of the Game: Social Innovation for Urban Transformation

Matthew Thompson (University of Liverpool, UK) published in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research Volume 43 Issue 6 (November 2019)

Abstract

Innovation is perhaps the buzzword in local economic development policy. Associated narrowly with neoliberal ideas, conventional notions of innovation – like its capitalocentric counterparts, enterprise and entrepreneurialism – may promise higher productivity, global competitiveness and technological progress but do not fundamentally change the ‘rules of the game’.

In contrast, an emerging field reimagines social innovation as disruptive change in social relations and institutional configurations. This article explores the conceptual and political differences within this pre‐paradigmatic field, and argues for a more transformative understanding of social innovation.

Building on the work of David Graeber, I mobilize the novel constructs of ‘play’ and ‘games’ to advance our understanding of the contradictory process of institutionalising social innovation for urban transformation. This is illustrated through a case study of Liverpool, where diverse approaches to innovation are employed in attempts to resolve longstanding socio‐economic problems. Dominant market‐ and state‐led economic development policies – likened to a ‘regeneration game’ – are contrasted with more experimental, creative, democratic and potentially more effective forms of social innovation, seeking urban change through playing with the rules of the game.

I conclude by considering how the play–game dialectic illuminates and reframes the way transformative social innovation might be cultivated by urban policy, the contradictions this entails, and possible ways forward.

Full text (25pp)

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New directions in economic development: Localist policy discourses and the Localism Act

an article by Gill Bentley (University of Birmingham, UK) and Lee Pugalis (Northumbria University, UK) published in Local Economy Volume 28 Number 3 (May 2013)

Abstract

Since entering office in 2010, a distinct grammar of localism has pervaded the UK Coalition Government’s philosophical outlook inflecting localist policy discourses and practice.

This article, written in June 2012, considers the implications of this new grammar for the scope, organisation and mobilisation of economic development interventions, through a focus on the 2011 Localism Act, which applies to England and Wales.

Interpreting these changes through a localist conceptual prism, which helps to refract varieties of localism, it raises some serious concerns regarding localism in action through exposing the controlling tendencies of central government. Analysis is also directed towards the uneasy relationship between centralised powers, conditional decentralisation and fragmented localism.

Nevertheless, emergent practice serves to demonstrate how ‘constrained freedoms’ can be negotiated to undertake innovative actions.

It concludes by suggesting some foundational elements that would support the notion of ‘empowered localities’ that may secure the government’s imperative to enable private sector-led growth.

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Government policy and women in the labour market: The importance of public sector employment

an article by Anne E Green (University of Warwick, UK) published in Local Economy Volume 27 Number 8 (December 2012)

Abstract

Women have made important quantitative and qualitative gains in the labour market in recent years. A key feature of women’s employment is their disproportionate concentration in the public sector, and this helps to explain the advances they have made in the labour market given the availability of high quality jobs and opportunities for skills development in this sector across many local areas.

This article explores how ongoing economic, labour market and welfare policy changes may undo some of the progress that has been made by women in the labour market, especially because of their vulnerability to job cuts in the public sector, the spatially uneven impact of such job losses and the particular dependence of women on local employment opportunities.

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Do colleges and universities increase their region’s human capital?

an article by Jaison R. Abel and Richard Deitz (Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Research and Statistics Group) published in Journal of Economic Geography Volume 12 Number 3 (May 2012)

Abstract

We investigate whether the degree production and R&D activities of colleges and universities are related to the amount and types of human capital in the metropolitan areas where they are located.

Our results indicate only a small positive relationship exists between a metropolitan area’s production and stock of human capital, suggesting that migration plays an important role in the geographic distribution of human capital.

We also find that academic R&D activities increase local human capital levels, suggesting that spillovers from such activities can raise the demand for human capital. Consistent with these results, we show that metropolitan areas with more higher education activity tend to have a larger share of workers in high human capital occupations.

Thus, this research indicates that colleges and universities can raise local human capital levels by increasing both the supply of and demand for skill.

JEL codes: J24 O18 R10

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