Large Corporations And Urban Employment

Makes correlations between success and geography, explaining how such rising centers of innovation as San Francisco and Austin are likely to offer influential opportunities and shape the national and global economies in positive or detrimental ways.

Originally published in 1998, Neighbourhood Jobs, Race, and Skills argues that race is a powerful and persistent barrier to employment. Analysing existing literature, this book outlines how racial discrimination in hiring against African Americans appears to remain a contributor to high unemployment rates in black neighbourhoods. The book also discusses how issues such as poor schools and physical and social isolation compound employment problems, as well as changes in policy on skill requirements and the location of jobs. The book argues that combined, this is a major contributor to concentrated urban employment and poverty.

Why small business is not the basis of American prosperity, not the foundation of American democracy, and not the champion of job creation. In this provocative book, Robert Atkinson and Michael Lind argue that small business is not, as is widely claimed, the basis of American prosperity. Small business is not responsible for most of the country's job creation and innovation. American democracy does not depend on the existence of brave bands of self-employed citizens. Small businesses are not systematically discriminated against by government policy makers. Rather, Atkinson and Lind argue, small businesses are not the font of jobs, because most small businesses fail. The only kind of small firm that contributes to technological innovation is the technological start-up, and its success depends on scaling up. The idea that self-employed citizens are the foundation of democracy is a relic of Jeffersonian dreams of an agrarian society. And governments, motivated by a confused mix of populist and free market ideology, in fact go out of their way to promote small business. Every modern president has sung the praises of small business, and every modern president, according to Atkinson and Lind, has been wrong. Pointing to the advantages of scale for job creation, productivity, innovation, and virtually all other economic benefits, Atkinson and Lind argue for a “size neutral” policy approach both in the United States and around the world that would encourage growth rather than enshrine an anachronism. If we overthrow the “small is beautiful” ideology, we will be able to recognize large firms as the engines of progress and prosperity that they are.

This book presents the immense problems and the enormity of the tasks confronting those who lead the world's large cities, whether in the developing, transitional or industrialized worlds. This book focuses on urban employment, and on what cities can do to create jobs at the local level. The underlying thesis is that creating and protecting employment can be the determining factor in easing, if not resolving, the multidimensional crisis faced by many cities worldwide.

Is big business on its way out? The author shows that the big firm is alive and well and becoming more flexible and efficient. He makes the case that although smaller companies have an important role to play, long term economic growth lies with the country's largest global companies.