Regional Studies: Best Paper Award

The Editorial Board of Regional Studies are delighted to acknowledge the achievements of Max Eisenburger, Marc Doussard, Laura Wolf-Powers, Greg Schrock & Stephen Marotta in being awarded the The Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) 2019 Best Paper Award for their paper entitled Industrial Inheritances: Makers, Relatedness and Materiality in New York and Chicago. The award, which is sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, is outlined by the ACSP as follows: “The purpose of this award program is to identify innovative research in city, community, urban or regional planning that is relevant to questions related to entrepreneurs and their firms as well as to relevant practitioners and policymakers.” The paper offers unique insights into the relationships between the ‘Maker Movement’ in New York and Chicago. In particular, through a grounded approach, including interviews with key actors, the research highlights the importance of three subsectors – hardware, food and beverage (FaB), and fashion – to agglomeration economies. Moreover, the paper also outlines a number of key challenges and policy solutions, including developing skills through training, the development of relevant and necessary spaces, and the retention of affordable real estate, through a broader approach of ‘industrial preservation’. In an era of ‘fast-policy’, and the continued promotion of residential and office-oriented real estate practices within urban regional space, the paper thus outlines a unique and important set of findings and policy-oriented recommendations for the development of sustainable practices that have implications for urban economic development and inclusion strategies.

In recognition and celebration of this achievement, the paper is available to read for free until 31/12/2019