DOCTORAL DISSERTATION Niche City: Manufacturing a Service Industry Presence in the Postindustrial Economy

博士论文利基城市：制造业在后工业经济中的服务业存在

• 批准号: 0327474
• 负责人: Harvey Molotch
• 金额: $ 0.73万
• 依托单位: New York University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-08-15 至 2005-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0327474&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DOCTORAL; DISSERTATION; Niche; City; Manufacturing

The elegant etching on the door of a fine furniture showroom in High Point, North Carolina reads "Paris-New York-London-High Point." To some observers these cities might be seen to be listed in a descending order of importance. However, in the furniture world, the order of importance of the cities on this list indubitably ascends. Often times drawing upon the symbolic, economic, and physical resources of its past, and other times creating such resources, the leaders of High Point have secured and maintained their downtown's niche capital investment--the International Home Furnishings Market--in the face of global competition from larger, wealthier peers. They have done so by aesthetically refashioning the entire downtown to suit the interests of this very specific niche. This strategy, which is unique to the current moment in global patterns of economic restructuring, exemplifies an urban form that this project terms "niche city." In this research on the nature and emergence of niche cities, I will use a case study approach to investigate how this transformation occurred, postulate the implications that this transformation has for residents, and explore the implications of these findings for other cities in similar circumstances. This project will employ two sources of data: qualitative and geographic. I will conduct interviews of over 70 key political, economic, and social figures in High Point and will supplement these with geographic data tracking changes in downtown real estate investment. This methodology will help to address several issues of interest to urban sociologists, urban geographers, political economists and urban studies scholars: the role of symbolic landscapes in small cities, the balance between a city's livability for residents and usability for visitors, the agency of cities vis-a-vis globalization, and the prospect of urban niche specialization as a way to attract capital to the center-city. This research will provide a counter-case to examinations of restructuring in large cities and to studies of growth by way of economic incentives, highlighting a small city that has utilized a unique approach to downtown profitability. In analyzing a place that some commentators have called "truly postmodern," this dissertation will analyze how leaders sculpt urban landscapes for the purposes of capital, a topic that has been largely relegated to theory and discussed in the passive tense as something that happens to cities. The broader impacts of this research will through dissemination of findings in published articles in scholarly and professional journals and in presentations at conferences of several disciplines involved in the study of globalization, economic transformation, symbolic landscapes, visitor economies, and inquiries of space versus place as well as in presentations to local political and media outlets as well as in public panel discussions and brown bag lunches at local universities.

在北卡罗来纳州的高点，一家精美的家具陈列室的门上有一幅优雅的蚀刻画，上面写着“巴黎-纽约-伦敦-高点”。“对一些观察家来说，这些城市可能被视为按重要性降序排列。然而，在家具世界中，这个名单上的城市的重要性顺序无疑会上升。 经常利用其过去的象征性，经济和物理资源，以及其他时间创造这些资源，高点的领导人已经获得并维持了他们市中心的利基资本投资-国际家居市场-面对来自更大，更富有的同行的全球竞争。 他们这样做的美学重塑整个市中心，以适应这个非常具体的利基利益。这一战略在当前全球经济结构调整的格局中是独一无二的，它体现了一种城市形式，本项目称之为“利基城市”。“在这项关于利基城市的性质和出现的研究中，我将使用案例研究方法来调查这种转变是如何发生的，假设这种转变对居民的影响，并探索这些发现对其他类似情况下的城市的影响。 该项目将采用两个数据来源：定性和地理。我将在高点对70多位重要的政治、经济和社会人物进行采访，并将跟踪市中心真实的房地产投资变化的地理数据作为补充。这种方法将有助于解决城市社会学家、城市地理学家、政治经济学家和城市研究学者感兴趣的几个问题：小城市中象征性景观的作用，城市居民宜居性和游客可用性之间的平衡，城市与全球化的关系，以及城市利基专业化作为吸引资本到中心城市的一种方式的前景。这项研究将提供一个反例，以检查在大城市的结构调整和经济激励的方式增长的研究，突出了一个小城市，利用了独特的方法，以市中心的盈利能力。 在分析一个被一些评论家称为“真正的后现代”的地方时，本文将分析领导者如何为资本目的塑造城市景观，这个话题在很大程度上被归入理论，并以被动时态作为发生在城市的事情进行讨论。这项研究的更广泛的影响将通过在学术和专业期刊上发表的文章中传播研究结果，并在涉及全球化，经济转型，象征性景观，游客经济，以及对空间与地点的询问，以及向当地政治和媒体的介绍，以及公共小组讨论和棕色午餐，地方大学。