The transformation of the urban economic base

The objective stated for this monograph is to provide some insights regarding the nature of urban economic systems and their growth processes which will be useful in formulating developmental policy. A foreword (by Eli Ginzberg) provides background on the history of and present challenge to reshape manpower policies and programs for cities afflicted by unemployment. The first of three chapters deals with the contribution of urban economic theory: the concept of an export base, the nature of selected growth processes, the forces of decentralization, the concept of a hierarchical system of cities, and the connections between demography and urban economics. Chapter 2 interprets recent national social and economic trends in terms of their implications for metropolitan economic development policy. Six themes are stressed: the limited change in export specialization, the growth of local sector employment, uneven rate of growth in productivity among sectors, the emergence of transfers of a major source of metropolitan income, the economic interdependence of central city and suburb, and the widely divergent impact of national demographic trends. The final chapter examines adjustment and stabilization mechanisms as well as sources of renewal in the city (cost-price adjustments; agglomeration linkages; and relative immobility of human, cultural, and fixed capital resources), and implications are suggested for five developmental strategies: getting the export base in focus, looking for linkages, avoiding demographic and economic surprises, getting a line on manpower requirements, and maximizing other income flows. (JT).