Posted: June 28th, 2022

Economic Geography: AGGLOMERATION

Assignment help – Discuss how a geographic concept or idea that we covered in class this term has improved your understanding of the factors/forces that lead to uneven development within places, regions, and/or the global economy. The essay should include a discussion about how an understanding of this concept or idea might help policymakers, planners, and/or activists to make economies more just, fair, and even with respect to their development implications.

For this essay, I want you to identify a concept or idea from any part of the course this term (e.g., agglomeration, central place theory, financialization, cumulative causation, global production networks, transfer pricing, etc.), briefly describe or define what it means, how it unevenly impacts economic development in places, regions, or globally, and how an understanding of the concept or idea can lead to improved policies, plans, and initiatives that can make economies more just, fair, and even in terms of their development implications. The idea or concept needs to be clearly stated and defined/described up front with the remainder of the essay working through your understanding of how it relates to uneven development and how an understanding of the concept or idea can help to enable policy makers and planners to develop initiatives that facilitate better (e.g., more just/progressive) forms of development.
You must have a clear introductory paragraph – one which summarizes the discussion to follow (i.e., tell me what you are going to tell me) – and you should have a concluding paragraph that tells me the main points of what you just told me. Organization and flow of your arguments are very important for your grade and this means you will need to proofread and edit carefully.
(4-5 pages MAX, double-spaced, 12-point font, 1-inch margins)
Economic Geography: AGGLOMERATION
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Institutional Affiliation
How Agglomeration Leads To The Uneven Development In Different Region
Agglomeration is primarily the clustering together of firms within a specific geographic region. This economic phenomenon is based on the underlying notion that both businesses and resources can fully exploit several efficiencies in close proximity. The process leads to agglomeration economies that come in two categories; the localized economies arising from industry concentration and the urbanization economies from the density of economic activities. Notably, an understanding of this phenomenon would demonstrate that even with the benefits that come from agglomeration, it does have an uneven effect on the economic development of regions. Scholars looking into the world trends associated with agglomeration indicated that in the last few decades, the business environment has demonstrated two specific traits in its relationship, increasing income inequality and a higher geographical agglomeration of economic activities in countries. This essay seeks to understand how agglomeration will unevenly affect geographic regions. This understanding is fundamental if the economic world is to have improved plans, policies, and initiatives that will ensure even development implications.
In developed economies such as Europe, agglomeration led to urban sprawl with the development of the urban cities. Notably, these developed economies would economically develop their regions with proper infrastructure, provision of properly remunerated jobs, and proper housing to ensure that even with people migrating to the centers, they got better working environments to develop their lives and ultimately their region’s economic development. Nonetheless, this urban sprawl would cause a different situation in developing countries (Turok & McGranahan, 2013). The urban sprawl, which started as a mass phenomenon, would attract a massive rural-urban migration of people seeking better agglomeration economies. Nonetheless, these cities were not fully developed to absorb every individual migrating in jobs, housing, and other fundamental services. Subsequently. The cities in developing countries ended up developing informal settlements that were very extensive and dense. These settlements made of sheds and poor infrastructure and amenities were forced to absorb the many individuals coming into the country. The industries were not growing as fast as expected, leading to some individuals being forced to live in very poor conditions trying to grapple with the expensive city life. Ultimately, while the urbanization in developed regions led to further development of better-equipped cities, it will not be the same for the developing economies due to minimal resources that could ensure all migrants are adequately absorbed into the economy.
It is prudent to note that the unique fact of the economic geography globally is an uneven spatial distribution in economic activities. This comprises the coexistence of booth economic development and underdevelopment. The high-income regions are primarily concentrated within the few temperate zones that occupy around 10% of the global land areas (Uneven development, 2021). It is therefore unfortunate that the world cannot be smaller with the pervading inequalities. Agglomeration focuses on placing organizations in particular regions since production costs have been assessed in terms of infrastructure available and the possibility of development. Notably, different locations get disadvantaged from economically developing since the present location and climate have considerable impacts on income and growth levels, effects from transport expenses, among other channels. Geography is hence an important factor for economic growth and the respective economic policy implemented. Numerous geographical regions that have been considered not conducive to allowing modern economic growth have shown that they deal with a dense population that is rapidly increasing. When the population increases considerably without any plans and strategies to develop proper infrastructure, these places end up being geographically disadvantaged regions.
A key element of agglomeration is that it develops agglomeration economies with the expectation of supporting the lesser developed regions to ensure that they eventually develop (Castells-Quintana & Royuela, 2014). Nonetheless, the workers working within these agglomeration economies would increase the returns from industrial activities and utility and concentrate them on the urban region. It is obvious that the mobile workers within the industrial centers receive higher industry wages compared to most of the persons working with the rural centers. Economic growth is attained through structural change within the economy where the benefits from increased returns and agglomeration economies are reallocated to the lesser developed communities (Castells-Quintana & Royuela, 2014). However, the concentration of these benefits in one region means that the other fails to undergo any economic growth grappling with issues such as increased inequality in incomes.
The uneven development of regions is also attributed to the gentrification process due to the agglomeration process. This mainly entails the urban neighborhoods experiencing a reverse, reinvestments, and in-migration of the middle-class members into the upper-middle-class group (Loibi et al., 2018). This comes from wealthy individuals showing a new demand for better quality housing and residential areas. The process is very distinct in urban agglomerations since the wealthy will cause great migratory pressures due to the higher social mobility obtained. This comes from an increase in their earnings and a change of status. The large economic zones provide earning opportunities for those in the higher social class (Loibi et al., 2018). Gentrification may be considered a positive process, but it has its negative implications, displacing the poor in these communities and destroying the existing indigenous social communities. It is prudent that the urban agglomerations focus on having a vibrant housing market.
Fundamentally, the development effects from agglomeration are variable, with no linear relationship present between urbanization and economic growth. While agglomeration potentially increases the rate of economic growth, the growth relies on the prevailing institutional setting and the investments made in public infrastructure. Removal of barriers to the ability towards urban centers could enable economic growth, but wholesome economic benefits are obtained through supportive policies and infrastructure investments. The government may start by enabling the agglomeration benefits to be maximized while the congested expenses decrease. This is done through a careful intervention in the agglomeration process. Their measures need to improve the situation while not downplaying the process’s voluntary nature, such as providing citizens with the resources that will help in making better-informed decisions. Incremental improvements should be implemented, and the initial step is for the regions to utilize realistic estimates of future populations to develop respective infrastructure and enforce land policies. It is fundamental for the governments to provide the cities with the right incentives for planning their projected growth in other situations. The cities need to understand that failing to provide services will not prevent the low-income immigrants from settling in.
Conclusively, despite the positive externalities that come from agglomeration, this economic phenomenon also brings negative effects causing an uneven economic development. This is because of issues such as the absence of proper infrastructure in different regions, failing to distribute the economic returns to disadvantaged regions, and the gentrification process. It is prudent that even as governments look to grow their urban centers through their agglomeration processes, they should have plans and policies in place to ensure other regions are not neglected.

References
Castells-Quintana, D., & Royuela, V. (2014). Agglomeration, inequality and economic growth. The Annals of Regional Science, 52(2), 343-366.
Loibl, W., Etminan, G., Gebetsroither-Geringer, E., Neumann, H. M., & Sanchez-Guzman, S. (2018). Characteristics of urban agglomerations in different continents: History, patterns, dynamics, drivers and trends. Urban Agglomeration, 29-63.
Turok, I., & McGranahan, G. (2013). Urbanization and economic growth: the arguments and evidence for Africa and Asia. Environment and Urbanization, 25(2), 465-482.
Uneven development. (2021). Retrieved from https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803110638188

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