Global Economic Crisis Is Focus for International Urban Innovation Conference

Posted June 16, 2016

Urban planning and economic development scholars from over twenty countries met at Georgia Tech the week of June 16, 2016 for the Regional Studies Association North America Conference. Organized and hosted by the Georgia Tech Center for Urban Innovation (CUI) directed by public policy professor Jennifer  Clark, the conference focused on “Cities and Regions: Managing Growth and Change.”

Speakers addressed the major changes made in response to the global financial crisis.

“Regional Policies, particularly in the North American context, have responded to economic challenges by adopting new technologies and new institutional and organizational forms to manage growth and change at the city scale,” says Jennifer Clark, associate professor and director of CUI. “The result is a complex and uneven landscape of public and private actors delivering financial services, scaling-up supply chains, coordinating firm networks, diffusing process and material innovations, and organizing new forms of civic representation and participation.”

In addition to organizing the conference, Clark also chaired several of the week’s plenaries, presented her own research, and introduced keynote speaker, University of Birmingham Department of Business and Labour Economics Professor Lisa De Propris.

Following is an excerpt from Clark’s presentation “Manufacturing by Design: The Rise of Regional Intermediaries and the Reemergence of Collective Action:”

It’s really important to keep in mind that social entrepreneurship, whether it’s acting in private sectors, or is a public or nonprofit, is really guiding a lot of these regional intermediaries as they try to solve their own problems in their regional economies from the bottom up rather than looking for new policy models from others. Again, from the economic development perspective, these are territorially bounded and that is a huge implication for our field.

Georgia Tech students and faculty also delivered presentations, including:

Executive VP of Research Stephen Cross
City and Regional Planning Associate Dean of Research Nancey Green Leigh
Professor of Economics Pat McCarthy
City and Regional Planning Assistant Professor Anna Kim
Associate Professor of Public Policy Gordon Kingsley
Civil & Environmental Engineering Associate Professor Laurie Garrow
Economics Research Scientist Aselia Urmanbetova
Enterprise Innovation Institute Extension Professional Leigh Hopkins
Public Policy Postdoctoral Fellow Yehyun An
Public Policy Postdoctoral Fellow Thomas Lodato
Public Policy Postdoctoral Fellow Taylor Shelton
Urban Innovation PhD Candidate Caroline Golin
Economics Graduate Student Geetanjali Shukla
History and Sociology Graduate Student Jonah Bea-Taylor
City and Regional Planning Graduate Student Thomas Douthat
City and Regional Planning Graduate Student Benjamin Kraft
Public Policy Graduate Student Evan Mistur

Additional speakers included scholars from major universities and organizations in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia.

For a complete roster of presenting scholars you can read the program here. For more information about the conference and the RAS organization or the Georgia Tech Center for Urban Innovation, you can visit the RSA website or the CUI blog.