Technopoles of Southern California

在过去的几十年里，美国和其他西方国家的工业生产形式和地点发生了巨大的变化。传统的方法包括集中的流水线生产，公司之间高度垂直整合(现在被称为“福特主义”，以承认美国汽车制造商在本世纪初开发这一系统中的作用)。这种结构已经被“灵活生产”的新模式所取代，在这种模式中，公司使用运营和选址方式，以最大限度地灵活应对竞争对手迅速变化的国际需求和活动模式。这些新的生产方式已经在较新的“高科技”行业中率先出现，但它们的影响现在已经在所有工业部门都能感受到。社会科学家通过各种案例研究了这一变化的各个方面，但尚未对工业生产变化对城市系统的影响进行全面、跨部门和跨地点的比较。该项目将确定南加州高科技产业主要集聚的社会和经济基础，并将调查这些集聚对该地区增长和地理结构的影响。高技术产业发展的四个具体方面将在理论和经验背景下进行审查：技术的发展和创新、产业组织的过程、劳动力市场和区位动态。理论工作将导致开发高科技产业的区位模型，该模型将通过对南加州公司的详细审查进行测试。这项测试将包括对该地区所有高科技公司的清点，并通过调查和访谈对电子和航空航天行业进行详细分析。将对行业内和行业间的具体区位问题进行分析，包括外部经济的存在、垂直一体化的程度以及企业的组织和劳动力市场特征。其他调查将侧重于工业发展与工业劳动力的人口特征和教育水平的关系，以及工业变化对区域增长模式的影响。这些经验分析将包括对已公布来源的大量数据以及在原始调查和访谈中收集的数据进行标准形式的统计和制图分析。这项研究的好处将是多方面的。通过理论拓展和相关假设的严谨实证检验，增强产业发展与城市结构相关的理论基础。对高科技发展细节的知识也将大大增强，极大地扩大我们对这些产业如何总体和在南加州成长和运作的理解，在那里，它们对美国最大、增长最快的大都市之一产生了如此深远的影响。

The form and location of industrial production in the U.S. and other western nations has changed dramatically in the last few decades. Traditional methods consisted of concentrated, assembly-line production with high degrees of vertical integration among firms (now termed "fordism" in recognition of the role of the U.S. automobile manufacturer in developing this system early in the century). This structure has been supplanted by new modes of "flexible production," in which firms use operational and locational styles to permit maximum flexibility in response to rapidly changing patterns of international demand and activity by their competitors. These new modes of production have been pioneered in newer "high technology" industries, but their impact now is felt in all industrial sectors. Social scientists have examined various facets of this change through a variety of case studies, but no comprehensive, cross-sectoral and cross-locational comparison has been made of the impacts of changing industrial production on urban systems. This project will identify the social and economic bases of major concentrations of high-technology industries in southern California and will investigate the impacts of these concentrations on the growth and geographic structure of the region. Four specific facets of high- technology industrial development will be examined in both theoretical and empirical contexts: the development and innovation of technology, the processes of industrial organization, labor markets, and locational dynamics. Theoretical work will result in development of a locational model of high-technology industries, which will be tested through detailed examination of firms in southern California. This testing will include an inventory of all high-technology firms in the region and detailed analyses of electronics and aerospace industries through the use of surveys and interviews. Analyses will be made of specific locational issues among and between industries, including the presence of external economies, the extent of vertical integration, and the organizational and labor market characteristics of firms. Additional inquiries will focus on the relationship of industrial development with the demographic character and educational levels of industrial labor forces, and on the impacts of industrial change on patterns of regional growth. These empirical analyses will consist of standard forms of statistical and cartographic analysis of extensive data from published sources and data gathered in original surveys and interviews. The benefits of this research will be multi-faceted. The theoretical bases relating industrial development and urban structure will be enhanced through both expansion of theory and the rigorous empirical testing of related hypotheses. Knowledge of the specifics of high-technological developmental also will be greatly enhanced, greatly extending our understanding of how such industries grow and function in general and in southern California, where they have had such profound impacts on one of the nation's largest and most rapidly growing metropolitan complexes.