GRM 3305 Transpor and Telecommunication

1

GRMD 2321 Economic Geography

(經濟地理)

2010-2011, 2nd Term

Instructor:Professor Jiang XU, Rm. 228, WongFooYuanBuilding, Tel: 2609-6475

Email:

Tutor:Miss Chen Yanyan, Rm.232, WongFooYuanBuilding, Tel: 2609-6537

Email:

Venue:ELB 401

Time: MONDAY: 2:30 pm – 4:15 pm

(1) Course Description

The geographer’s viewpoint is a spatial one, focusing on the content of areas, their interactions and relationships with other areas, and on the behavior and processes that give rise to the patterns, structure, and organization of space. The spatial arrangement of human economic activity is (for the most part) a reflection of the aspatial (institutional, political, economic and social) processes operating in society, such as those generating employment, unemployment, technological change, etc. Consequently, the patterns, structures, and organization of economic space are an outcome of the many and complex processes inherent in the way how society is organized.

This course will provide an overview of economic-geographical key theories and concepts in analyzing economic processes at various geographical scales. To this end, the relationships between space, economy and society will be discussed using a number of cases. Topics cover globalization and local development, and how they work together to shape spatial organization and economic change, location of production and transnational corporations, and spatial interaction and network. The course provides an excellentvehicle toward understanding today’s increasingly interdependent world.

(2) Learning Objectives

The course is designed to introduce you to the study of economic systems from a geographic perspective. It is intended for both the student who is considering planning as a major field of study in the future and the student with primary interest in a related field that requires knowledge of economic growth at various geographical scales. The general objective of this course will be to provide an overview of the field of economic geography and its linkages to related issues of development and underdevelopment, international business, and the global economy. This objective can be further divided into following two components:

• To introduce geographical approach in understanding economic phenomenon

Economic geography focuses on the ways in which economic activity is stretched over the space of the earth’s surface. Economists too rarely take the spatial dimension seriously, a perspective that implies that all economic activity takes place on the head of a pin. Geographers, by contrast, are interested in the manner in which social relations and activities occur unevenly over space, the ways in which local places and the global economy are intertwined, and the difference that location makes to how economic activity is organized. No social process occurs in exactly the same way in different places. Thus, where and when economic activity occurs has a profound influence on how it occurs. Space, then, can no longer be relegated to the sidelines. As globalization has made small differences among places increasingly, space has become more, not less, important.

• To understand the impacts of globalization and responses at different geographical scales

Globalization – the growing integration of economies and societies around the world – continues to transform the world economy at an ever-increasing rate. This new world economy links distant peoples and places so that what happens in one place shapes what happens in another through networks of interdependence. While most people recognize the widespread changes brought about by globalization, many disagree on whether the benefits outweigh the costs. Economic geography provides an excellent vehicle toward understanding today’s increasingly interdependent world.

(3)Expected Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, the student should be able to

• Describe the goals, concepts, and subject matter of economic geography
• Related theories from economic geography to interpret the economic geography of specific places and to understand economic problems their encounter in daily life.
• Assess how economic processes help to structure specific places and the lives of people living in those places.
• Understand how economic processes connect their own lives to those of others and how economic choices they make affect the lives of other people.

(4) Teaching and Learning Activities

• Introduction of concepts and methods (weekly lectures)
• Understanding of concepts and methods for describing and analyzing current economic issuesfrom geographical approach (essay/presentation/tutorial)
• Geographical exploration of current economic issue (one essay, writing and presentation)

(5) Topics*

* This is a tentative list of topics. Final topics may be changed by the instructor.

(6) Readings

(A) Essential

Basic Textbook:

Coe, Neil M., Kelly, Philip F, Yeung, Henry W. C. (2007) Economic Geography: A Contemporary Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing(HF1025 .C73 2007)

Alternative Textbooks:

Clark, G.L., Feldman, M.P., Gertler, M.S. (eds) (2000). The Oxford Handbook of Economic Geography, Oxford: Oxford University Press (HF1025 .O94 2000)

Dickens Peter (2007) Global Shift: Reshaping The Global Economic Map in The 21st Century, London: The Guilford Press (5th edition)(Earlier version available at university library: HD2321 .D53 2003)

(B) Suggested reading by course section(Reference listed here are considered important readings. For other readings, please refer to the basic textbook)

(Week 1 - 2) Overview

Part I, Coe, Neil M., Kelly, Philip F, Yeung, Henry W. C. (2007) Economic Geography: A Contemporary Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing(HF1025 .C73 2007).

Dicken, P. (2004) Geographers and ‘globalization’: (yet) another missed boat?, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 29(1): 5-26.

Barnes, T.J., Peck, J., Sheppard, E. and Tickell, A. (eds) (2003) The Economic Geography, Oxford: Blackwell.

Cameron, A. and Palan, R. (2004), The Imagined Economies of Globalization, London: Sage.

Castree, N. (2004) Economy and culture are dead! Long live economy and culture! Progress in Human Geography, 28(2): 204-26.

Scott, A.J. (2000) ‘Economic geography: the great last half century’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 24(4): 483-504.

(Weeks 3) Uneven development

Chapter 3, Coe, Neil M., Kelly, Philip F, Yeung, Henry W. C. (2007) Economic Geography: A Contemporary Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing(HF1025 .C73 2007).

Part I, Dickens Peter (2007) Global Shift: Reshaping The Global Economic Map in The 21st Century, London: The Guilford Press (5th edition)(Earlier version available at university library: HD2321 .D53 2003)

Castree, N. and Gregory, D. (2006) David Harvey: A critical reader, Oxford: Blackwell.

Chapters by Peet and Thrift, Peet, R. and Thrift, N. (1989) New Models in Geography, 2 vols, London: Unwin Hyman.

Swyngedouw, E. (2000) The Marxian alternative: historical-geographical materialism and the political economy of the northern core region, Economic Geography, 63(2): 160-82.

(Weeks 4) Commodity chain

Chapter 4, Coe, Neil M., Kelly, Philip F, Yeung, Henry W. C. (2007) Economic Geography: A Contemporary Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing(HF1025 .C73 2007).

Chapter 1 & 2, Dickens Peter (2007) Global Shift: Reshaping The Global Economic Map in The 21st Century, London: The Guilford Press (5th edition)(Earlier version available at university library: HD2321 .D53 2003)

Coe, N., Hess, M., Yeung, H., Dicken, P., and Henderson, J. (2004) ‘”Globalizing” regional development: a global production networks perspective’, Transactions, Institute of British Geographers, 29: 468-484.

Gereffi, G. (1994) The organization of buyer-driven global commodity chain: how US retailers shape overseas production network, in G. Gereffi and M. Korzeniewicz (eds) Commodity Chains and Global Development, Westport, CT: Praeger, pp. 95-122.

Gereffi, G., Humphrey, J. and Sturgeon, T. (2005) The governance of global value chain, Review of International Political Economy, 12: 78-104.

Harvey, D. (1989) Editorial: a breakfast vision, Geography Review, 3:1.

Hughes, A. (2005) Corporate strategy and the management of ethical trade; the case of the UK food and clothing retailers, Environment and Planning A, 37: 1145-63.

(Weeks 5 & 8) Technology and nature as commodity

Chapter 5 & 6, Coe, Neil M., Kelly, Philip F, Yeung, Henry W. C. (2007) Economic Geography: A Contemporary Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing(HF1025 .C73 2007).

Chapter 3, Dickens Peter (2007) Global Shift: Reshaping The Global Economic Map in The 21st Century, London: The Guilford Press (5th edition)(Earlier version available at university library: HD2321 .D53 2003)

Angel, D. (2000) Environmental innovation and regulation, in G.L. Clark, M. Feldman and M.S. Gertler (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Economic Geography, Oxford: Oxford University Press (HF1025 .O94 2000), pp. 607-22.

Bryson, J. and Henry, N. (2005) The global production system: from Fordism to post-Fordism, in P. Daniels, M. Bradshaw, D. Shaw, and J. Sidaway (eds) An Introduction to Human Geography: Issue for the 21st Century, Harlow: Pearson, pp. 313-35.

Castree, N. (2003) Commodifying what nature? Progress in Human Geography, 27(3): 273-97.

Gibbs D. (2006) Prospects for an environmental economic geography: linking ecological modernisation and regulationist approaches, Economic Geography, 82: 193-215.

Markusen, A. (1996) Sticky places in slippery spaces: a typology of industrial districts, Economic Geography, 72: 293-313.

(Week 9 - 13) Unveiling economic space: actors

Part III, Coe, Neil M., Kelly, Philip F, Yeung, Henry W. C. (2007) Economic Geography: A Contemporary Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing(HF1025 .C73 2007).

Chapter 4, 5 and 6, Dickens Peter (2007) Global Shift: Reshaping The Global Economic Map in The 21st Century, London: The Guilford Press (5th edition)(Earlier version available at university library: HD2321 .D53 2003)

Brenner, N. (1999), ‘Globalisation as reterritorialisation: the re-scaling of urban governance in the European Union’, Urban Studies, 36: 431-51.

Brenner, N. (2003), ‘Metropolitan institutional reform and the rescaling of state space in contemporary western Europe’, European Urban and Regional Studies, 10(4): 297-324.

Brenner, N., Jessop, B., Jones, M. and MacLeod, G. (eds) State/Space, Oxford: Blackwell.

Castree, N.,Coe, N.M., Ward, K. and Samers, M. (2004) Spaces of Work: Global Capitalism and the Geographies of Labour, London: Sage.

Coe, N. M. and Lee, Y.S. (2006) The strategic localization of transnational retailers: the case of Samsung-Tesco in South Korea, Economic Geography, 82: 61-88.

Coe, N., Hess, M., Yeung, H., Dicken, P., and Henderson, J. (2004) ‘”Globalizing” regional development: a global production networks perspective’, Transactions, Institute of British Geographers, 29: 468-484.

Dicken, P. (2004) Geographers and ‘globalization’: (yet) another missed boat?, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 29(1): 5-26.

MacLeod, G. and Goodwin, M. (1999) Space, scale and state strategy: rethinking urban and regional governance, Progress in Human Geography, 23: 503-27.

Pun, N. (2007) Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace, Durham: Duke University Press

Wu, F, Xu, J and Yeh, A G O (2007) Market, State and Space: Urban Development in Post-Reform China. London and New York: Routledge.

Xu, J (2008), 'Governing city regions in China: theoretical discourses and perspectives for regional strategic planning', Town Planning Review, 79(2-3): 157-185.

Xu, J and Yeh, A G O (2009), 'Decoding urban land governance: state reconstruction in contemporary Chinese cities', Urban Studies, 46(3): 559-581.

Yang, Y. R. and Hsia, C-J. (2007) Spatial clustering and organizational dynamics of trans-border production networks: a case study of Taiwanese IT companies in the Greater Suzhou Area, China, Environment and Planning A, 39(6), pp. 1346-63.

(Week 15) Socializing economic life

Part IV, Neil M., Kelly, Philip F, Yeung, Henry W. C. (2007) Economic Geography: A Contemporary Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing(HF1025 .C73 2007).

Domosh, M. and Seager, J.K. (2001) Putting Women in Place: Feminist Geograpiers Make Sense of the World, New York: Cuildford Press.

McDowell, L. (1999) Gender, Identity and Place: Understanding Feminist Geographies, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Thrift, N. (2000a) Perfoming cultures in the new economy, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 90: 674-92.

Thrift, N. (2000b) Pandora’s box? Cultural geographies of economies, in G.L. Clark, M.A. Feldman and M.S. Gertler (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Economic Geography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 689-704 (HF1025 .O94 2000)

(C) Useful journals available:

Annals of the Association of American Geographers

Cambridge Journal of Economics

Economic Geography

Environment and Planning A

Environment and Planning D

Journal of Economic Geography

Progress in Human Geography

Regional Studies

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers

Urban Geography

Urban Studies

(D) Suggested websites

• The Web Book of Regional Science (
• Harvey, D. (2007) KPFA radio interview with geographer David Harvey about the origins, trajectory, and significance of free market fundamentalism. Link here:
• to learn about the Fair Trade Foundation

(7) Tutorials

Detailed tutorial materials will be posted on the WebCT. It is critically important for everyone to read the materials ahead of time – please do not register for this class if you intend on showingup for discussion sessions in an unprepared state of mind. It will be extremely useful if you can read more related materials, and think critically before showing up for discussion.

Tutorial 1: A Year without ‘Made in China’

This tutorial will be conducted betweenWeek 4 and 5.It will last around 1.5 – 2 hours. Detailed arrangement and references will be announced separately and posted on the course WebCT.

What:Globalization has attracted lots of discussion and influenced every aspects of our life. “Made in China” is a commonly realized phenomenon, has become the cover story of Times, The Economists etc. This tutorial aims to understand this phenomenon froma video named “Made in China: Globalization and the Factory Workers” and a book “A Year without ‘Made in China’ (沒有中國製造的一年)”. Those materials are not simply about China but are tales of how the world has changed and, more importantly, where the world economy is heading to.

How: (1) The video which lasts for around 30 min will be played first; (2) After the video, read the text extracted from the book A Year without Made in China; and (3) The class will be divided into 4 groups. Four questions will be prepared for group discussions. Each group should spend around 20 minutes go through all 4 questions. After the discussion, each group should send representatives to share their views on respective question (i.e. group 1 reports question no.1, group 2 question no.2 and so on) Sharing time would be 15 min per group.

Tutorial 2: Student Presentation Continued

Student presentations for their essays will be arranged on April 11, 2011. If we cannot finish, we will have one more tutorial between Week 14 – 15 to continue the presentation session.

(8) Essayand Presentation

Format

Essay is a team project. Each team will submit one essay. Students are asked to form into 2-person or 3 person teams (depend on the number of students). Team information has to be provided to the TA after the tutorial 1.

Essay

The essay is to be an "empirically based research essay". The focus is to be on theeconomic space economy of a country and you can select any topicdiscussed in the textbook. You may focus on the entire country or on a particular regionwith a specific economic problem. For example, you could focus on the country ofGermany and evaluate different regions as potential locations for specific firms orindustries. Or, you could focus on the chronic unemployment problem in the eastern partof Germany or the demise of heavy industry and the mining sector in the Ruhr region ofwestern Germany and offer possible solutions for these regional problems. Or, you could choose to discuss industrial restructuring or industrial cluster in the Pearl River Delta or any other regions in China. You have to raise the question, establish your arguments, and try to use data and other available information to support your arguments. Excellent background dataare available through the Internet. See for instance:

or

tePK:136917,00.html.

Requirement

Essays are to be typed 1.5-spaced and must be a minimum of4,000 words, properly referenced as an academic writing (see Appendix A). Essays without properly cited references will lose points. Essays are due on April 26, 2011. You are required to submit your essay to the VeriGuide System, and then hand in a hardcopy with a receipt to the TA before the deadline. Late submission will be accepted by the TA for grading with a 20% per day penalty.Essay that are strongly argued and evidenced with critical thinking will be graded ‘A’. How to build up your critically thinking skill can be found in Appendix B.

Presentation of student essays

For your presentation you will use PowerPoint and your presentation will last 10 minutes plus five minutes Q&A. Copies of your PowerPoint presentation should be sent to the TA on April 10, 2011 at the latest. Early submission is welcome.

Presentation sessions will be chaired by Professor Xu and the TA. The format is similar to workshop. In addition to your presentation, we will discuss a number of local and regional issues that are closely related to your essay. All students are strongly recommended to come to presentation sessions. This is a good opportunity to gather comments from the teacher and your fellow students to improve your essay before the final submission. During these sessions, you are going to explore issues we may not be able to discuss during class. So, please try your best to come.

(9) Assessment Schemes

Tutorial (attendance and discussion)20%

Essay (writing + presentation) 35%

Final exam 45%

(10) Feedback for Evaluation

Two anonymous course evaluations (one in the fourth week and one in the last week) will be conducted to get feedback about the course from students.

(11) Academic Honesty Guidelines

All work you submit for this course must be entirely the creation of you (and yourpartners for group work). Any text, images, or ideas taken from another source must beproperly cited using the parenthetical citation method in your papers and presentations.Please check (See Appendix A) for information about how to cite the sources you consult.It is your responsibility to learn how to cite sources correctly. If you have any questions,please ask the tutor. All cases of plagiarism and cheating will be dealt with by theUniversity.