The Changing Economic Structure of Metropolitan Regions: A Preliminary Comparative Analysis

Batten, D.F. (1984). The Changing Economic Structure of Metropolitan Regions: A Preliminary Comparative Analysis. IIASA Collaborative Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: CP-84-050

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Abstract

Contribution to the Metropolitan Study: 15 -- The project "Nested Dynamics of Metropolitan Processes and Policies" was initiated by the Regional and Urban Development Group in 1982, and work on this collaborative study started in 1983. This series of contributions to the study is a means of conveying information between the collaborators in the network of the project.

The foundation of the project is a systematic comparison of dynamic phenomena in a set of relatively advanced metropolitan regions. This comparison is intended to identify key factors and observable development paths which are shared by all regions, or at least by certain subgroups of regions.

In this paper, we therefore begin to assess the relative stage and speed of economic structural development in a given set of such regions. A methodology based on changing employment shares is developed to examine industrial substitution (that is, aggregate technological change) through time and over metropolitan space. The relocation and restructuring of job opportunities within or outside a metropolitan region can be interpreted in terms of industrial innovation and product cycle theory. In this way, it is possible to identify the trajectory of a global cycle of economic development in terms of each city's current economic and spatial structure and its relative speed of technological change.

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