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William Barnes and Larry C. Ledebur,
The New Regional Economies: The U.S. Common
Market and the Global Economy, (Sage: Thousand
Oaks, Calif., 1998)
It’s not simply the economy,
stupid! It’s specifically metropolitan centered
regional economies. That, in a nutshell,
is the message of William Barnes’ and Larry
Ledebur’s book.
Viewing the U.S. national economy
as the operative unit of economic policy, they argue,
is a deeply flawed approach. The time is at hand,
they argue, to dump the “one-size-fits-all,
rising-tide-lift-all boats, mesmerizing image of
a single homogenous national economy” and instead
to focus on the performance of metropolitan-centered
“local economic regions.”
Why? Because that’s where the
real economic action is — in the hundreds of
varied, competitive, yet closely linked and interdependent
local regions. This point itself is not new, but
Barnes and Ledebur treat it with new sophistication
and depth. Topics of their chapters include: the
rise and demise of the City-State, changing definitions
of “economic region,” variations across
regional economies, and internal interdependence
of regions and regional business cycles. The sum
total, the authors argue, is a national economic
reality they term “common market regionalism.”
Despite multiple and striking differences, they
suggest, America’s many natural economic regions
are linked, inextricably, by transportation, communication,
finance and other networks.
The book’s concluding chapters
call for collaboration among governments and recommend
a “Forum for the Common Market,” where
regional representatives can address issues such
as trade, finance, and monetary policy.
This ambitious monograph provides
a clear and coherent case for focusing on regional
economies and developing strategies to reshape their
governance, as essential steps to a more competitive
and productive U.S. “common market” of
citistates.
— John Stuart Hall
Last updated January
31, 2001
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