The Niche City Idea: How a Declining Manufacturing Center Exploited the Opportunities of Globalization

Abstract

This article examines a small city that forged a global service industry niche. Its leaders aligned the temporality of its historic downtown with that of the international furniture industry to make it the world's primary furniture merchandising node. This article overviews the radical transformation of the downtown, describes the 'choreography' of the area, and considers what the author feels are the important wider implications of what is, on the surface, a deceptively odd case. The author suggests that, in engaging this specific strategy, this very unique city portends a more general type of post-industrial "Niche City", a city that forges global centrality by creating an economic specialization in a specific segment of the global service economy. Copyright (c) 2009 The Author. Journal Compilation(c) 2009 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

From Big to Small Cities: A Qualitative Analysis of the Causes and Outcomes of Post–Recession Municipal Bankruptcies

“…Urban theorists have therefore increasingly acknowledged that all cities, small and large, create policies, negotiate their contexts, and transmit innovations across the urban system (Leadbeater and Oakley ; Schlichtman ). Not only must we see small cities as part of the heterogenous mix of cities (Bell and Jayne ), we must also recognize that distinctive forms of policy‐making and economic development take place in all cities.…”

“…It recognizes the potential nationwide significance of these extreme events (see Peck 2012;Silver 2015) while avoiding a focus upon big city examples (Peck and Whiteside 2016) or reducing the bankruptcies to the status of extreme outliers (Aldag et al 2019;Kim and Warner 2016). The paper therefore draws on the small cities literature to both recognize the distinctiveness and connectedness of small and medium sized cities (Bell and Jayne 2006;2009) and avoids the trappings of particularistic explanation (Peck 2015;Scott and Storper 2016). (2010-2017), multi-part research project that examined the causes of, and local responses to, post-recession municipal bankruptcy.…”

Following the creative capital model: the social consequences for urban and suburban counties

“…The shift from manufacturing work to service work in the United States has had a profound impact on how communities function (Cappellin 2007;Powell and Snellman 2004;Schlichtman 2009). Globalization has allowed many manufacturing companies to send work to other countries, where lower wages can be paid.…”

“…Cities that have attracted the creative class have seen a larger increase in economic growth from 1990 to 2000 (Wojan, Lambert, and McGranahan 2007). Schlichtman (2009) illustrated how a city could become a "niche" city based around creative capital. open to all people is one of the traits that the creative classes possesses that other classes may not.…”

“…The relationship between creative exposure and the creative class should be explored further in the future. Many scholars have demonstrated that an increase in exposure to technology and ideas does increase economic development (Moss 1998;Schlichtman 2009;Wojan et al 2007). In theory, the creative class model should provide creative exposure and allow cities to grow economically.…”