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The cultural economy forms a leading trajectory of urban development, and has emerged as a key facet of globalizing cities. Cultural industries include new media, digital arts, music and film, and the design industries and professions, as well as allied consumption and spectacle in the city. The cultural economy now represents the third-largest sector in many metropolitan cities of the West including London, Berlin, New York, San Francisco, and Melbourne, and is increasingly influential in the development of East Asian cities (Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore), as well as the mega-citi

The New Economy of the Inner City presents a penetrating analysis of contemporary new industry formation and its theoretical signifiers, derived from compelling case studies situated in four global cities: London, Singapore, San Francisco and Vancouver

In this essay I will be advancing an argument that the national development trajectory is in transition from a "mature staples" phase to a "post-staples" era, signifying not only a new phase of industrial restructuring, but also profound shifts in social development and the structures and operations of the state. This emergent development trajectory is shaped by a melange of influences which includes new rounds of industrial restructuring, the repositioning of cities and settlements within the Canadian urban hierarchy and (more derisively) international networks, and influential social movements (including multiculturalism and environmentalism). My notion of a "post-staples" state is not intended as an "absolute", as even episodes of quite fundamental and far-teaching industrial and socioeconomic change necessarily encompass a sublation of conditions, both contemporary and historical, rather than a complete and totalising break with the past. Rather, these concepts represent ventures in capturing important new phases of economic change, together with the complex social, cultural, spatial and political causalities and outcomes that comprise basic shifts in development mode. It is important to recognise, however, that this "post-staples" political economy is not a "non-staples" one. That is, many regions of the country remain at the stage of a "mature" staples political economy functioning under a Ricardian state system. Moreover, despite the many efforts of Canadian governments to promote "knowledge-based" industries such as software and computer games which have few, if any, material inputs, most of the industries and activities towards which knowledge has been directed in Canada, are classic staples ones such as agriculture (genetically-modified foods), forestry (new pulp and paper techniques, biologically-enhanced silviculture), fisheries (aquaculture) mines (enhanced reclamation) and energy (hydrogen fuels, renewables, offshore drilling and tar sands production). The post-staples direction of Canada's political economy then, is complex and nuanced but represents elements of continuity with earlier stages in Canada's economic history, not a decisive break with the past. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractIn this essay I will be advancing an argument that the national development trajectory is in transition from a "mature staples" phase to a "post-staples" era, signifying not only a new phase of industrial restructuring, but also profound shifts in social development and the structures and operations of the state. This emergent development trajectory is shaped by a mélange of influences which includes new rounds of industrial restructuring, the repositioning of cities and settlements within the Canadian urban hierarchy and (more decisively) international networks, and influential social movements (including multiculturalism and environmentalism). My notion of a "post-staples" state – is not intended as an "absolute", as even episodes of quite fundamental and far-teaching industrial and socioeconomic change necessarily encompass a sublation of conditions, both contemporary and historical, rather than a complete and totalising break with the past. Rather, these concepts represent ventures in capturing important new phases of economic change, together with the complex social, cultural, spatial and political causalities and outcomes that comprise basic shifts in development mode. It is important to recognise, however, that this "post-staples" political economy is not a "non-staples" one. That is, many regions of the country remain at the stage of a "mature" staples political economy functioning under a Ricardian state system. Moreover, despite the many efforts of Canadian governments to promote "knowledge-based" industries such as software and computer games which have few, if any, material inputs, most of the industries and activities towards which knowledge has been directed in Canada, are classic staples ones such as agriculture (genetically-modified foods), forestry (new pulp and paper techniques, biologically-enhanced silviculture), fisheries (aquaculture) mines (enhanced reclamation) and energy (hydrogen fuels, renewables, offshore drilling and tar sands production. The Post-staples direction of Canada's political economy then, is complex and nuanced but represents elements of continuity with earlier stages in Canada's economic history, not a decisive break with the past.

Planning and local policies, informed recurrently by theories of transformative urban development, have represented influential (and at times decisive) agencies of change in Vancouver's metropolitan core. A commitment to principles of post-industrialism in the 1970s, realised through the conversion of False Creek South from an obsolescent industrial site to a medium-density, mixed-income residential landscape, effectively broke the mould of the mid-century urban core. The seminal Central Area Plan (approved 1991) enabled the comprehensive reordering of inner-city space, exemplified by a post-modern diversity, complexity and interdependency of territory and land use, and a strategic reversal of the employment-housing imbalance in the core. The city has broadly succeeded in asserting public interests as contingencies of change within the core, but these processes have created new social conflicts, tensions and displacements, as well as a glittering and paradigmatic 21st-century central city. In theoretical terms, the Vancouver experience marks a clear break from the classic model of the post-industrial city, the latter typified by a monocultural, office-based economy, extreme spatial asymmetries of investment and development and modernist form and imagery. At the same time, emergent production clusters, residential mega-projects and spaces of consumption and spectacle in the central area present marked contrasts to the spatial disorder and chaotic patterns of `incipient' post-modernism, underscoring an exigent need for innovative and integrative retheorisation.

Federal policies regarding renewable and clean energy often lack clear definition, are incomplete, and are scattered across multiple statutes and agencies. Yet at the same time, recent decisions of both federal agencies and courts have attributed a preemptive effect to federal statutes that threatens to hobble innovation in renewable and clean energy policy by subnational regulators. One consequence of this approach is that most significant policies promoting clean and renewable energy are channeled toward subsidies from the federal fisc, rather than diverse policies undertaken independently by state governments or regional customers and suppliers. This Article argues that, contrary to many agency and judicial decisions, the text, structure, history and purpose of key federal statutes does not require a singular approach to federalism in clean energy policy. Borrowing from environmental law, we plant a flag for a preemption approach that we call the "clean energy floor,†and show that this is consistent with the history and structure of federal energy legislation, including both New Deal and more modern statutes. As a normative matter, we also argue that reading of federal energy statutes to incorporate regulatory floors is a good idea, to the extent that it allows federal and state energy regulators an opportunity to work together to overcome problems of fragmentation, stagnation and stalemate -- and especially to address important issues related to climate change and new technologies such as renewable energy and fracking, even absent new congressional action or completely defined federal policy. Our approach to clean energy federalism also has some important implications for how courts should interpret other statutes in the regulatory contexts where federal and state authority are often perceived as substitutes for one another, such as health care.

The purpose of this paper is to make an argument about the importance of geographical context and contingency in the emergence of the new economy within the inner city. Using a case study of Vancouver, it is suggested, first, that its new economy has emerged precisely out of the peculiar trajectory of the city and is bound up with a staples economy, branch plant corporate offices, transnationalism, and mega-project orientation. Secondly, to illustrate the importance of situation and site, the paper focuses on two of Vancouver's inner-city locales: Yaletown, on the margins of the Downtown South, a former industrial and warehousing district now regarded as the epicentre of Vancouver's new economy; and Victory Square, the former commercial heart of the early Vancouver, for many years experiencing disinvestment and decline, but now on the cusp of a major revitalisation which threatens to displace long-established social cohorts.

This paper provides a preliminary analysis of costs and benefits associated with exclusionary zoning, a policy vehicle which seeks to preserve or promote industry in the urban core especially (where competition for land resources is typically the greatest), by prohibiting the incursion or encroachment of 'higher uses.' The paper examines arguments commonly advanced pertaining both to alleged 'costs' of exclusionary zoning (e.g., relating to efficiency arguments, impacts on urban economic adaptability, and municipal revenues); and also to perceived 'benefits' (diversification of the economic base and urban employment structure, efficiency of public service provision, the restriction of negative externalities, etc.). It is observed that for both costs and benefits, basic underlying arguments have in some cases been over-stated, or have failed to critically examine all relevant factors. It is suggested that in general, exclusionary zoning may be appropriate if applied in a selective manner; but that expectations as to outcome should be tempered in the light of possible costs, and also by an understanding of serious limitations associated with that approach.