Average Places II: Context Conditions for Stagnation

Keywords: Urban-regional development; average city-regions; QCA; U.S. urban system; economic stagnation
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

As uneven spatial development has caused substantial negative socio-political turmoil in the United States, not only growth regions but also economically lagging and declining areas have gained attention by researchers in economic geography and regional studies. In contrast, average places that are somewhere in between have not been in the center of related debates. In our two-stage study of all stand-alone micropolitan and metropolitan areas with under 250,000 people in the United States, we examine two groups of average places that had similar average median income levels in 1993 but were differently positioned in the income hierarchy by 2017. While the first in a series of two papers focuses on fast-growing cities, this part addresses stagnating cities and identifies their specific trajectories of stagnation. Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), the paper identifies three trajectories of stagnation, characterized by different combinations of present and absent socio-economic and institutional conditions. These are referred to as (i) isolated manufacturing or diversified towns, (ii) manufacturing or diversified satellite towns; and (iii) aging public-sector or diversified towns. Our paper suggests that single explanations for economic stagnation in average places do not exist and that neither deindustrialization, nor diversification, or the lack thereof, by themselves explain why they are being “left behind.” Instead, place-based investigations are needed that examine combinations of contextual and institutional factors for similar types of city-regions.