A.J. Jacobs | East Carolina University (original) (raw)

Papers by A.J. Jacobs

Cities serve as nexus, they connect and are shaped by politico-governmental (State), market-econo... more Cities serve as nexus, they connect and are shaped by politico-governmental (State), market-economic (Market), civil-societal (Societal), and geographic-natural (Geo-spatial) activities and/or events occurring at all spatial tiers. As a result, a thorough understanding of urban development outcomes requires a trans-disciplinary, integrated approach that draws upon multiple, even sometimes competing, scholarly paradigms. In the spirit of this, this article introduces The City as the Nexus Model, a new perspective for analyzing urban and regional development tra-jectories, which incorporates the ideas of Agglomeration, Urban Regime, World/Global City, and Nested City Theories, among others. By drawing upon the central themes of these sometimes competing perspectives, this new model shows how a combination of State, Market, Societal, and Geospatial factors uniquely shape economic and spatial outcomes in the world's city-regions. Most importantly, the article/new model provides scholars, practitioners, and students with a new trans-disciplinary framework to utilize in their own empirically-based studies of city-regions.

Urban Studies, 2003

Summary. This article compares the relationship between national embeddedness and metro-politan d... more Summary. This article compares the relationship between national embeddedness and metro-politan development in the Detroit and Nagoya auto regions. Based upon literature, descriptive data and in-depth interviews with 140 development officials in these 2 regions, it finds ...

![Research paper thumbnail of Political Power, Collective Memory, and American Central Cities: The Discourses of the Conservative Elite`s Counter-Memory of the City](https://a.academia-assets.com/images/blank-paper.jpg)

The Open Urban Studies Journal, 2008

Journal of Urban Affairs, 2009

Journal of Urban Affairs, 2004

Drawing on scholarly literature, descriptive data, and 142 face-to-face interviews with non-elect... more Drawing on scholarly literature, descriptive data, and 142 face-to-face interviews with non-elected local officials, this article examines the relationship among political-economic context, inter-municipal relations, and spatial outcomes in the primary auto regions of the US (Detroit) and Japan (Tokai) between 1969 and 1996. It maintains that Detroit's embedded context promoted inter-municipal relations that can best be termed competitive separatism and apathetic avoidance. It then chronicles how such inter-local relations severely exacerbated existing conditions of uneven development in the region over the past 30 years. Conversely, it demonstrates how Tokai's context encouraged lateral interdependence among communities in its region. It then reveals how inter-local collaboration played a critical role in the relatively balanced metropolitan growth that came to exist there during this time period. It concludes by stating that inter-municipal relations have played a more vital role in metropolitan development than previously has been described in the scholarly literature.

In: A. J. Jacobs (ed.), The World’s Cities: Contrasting Regional, National, and Global Perspecti... more In: A. J. Jacobs (ed.), The World’s Cities: Contrasting Regional, National, and Global Perspectives. New York: Routledge, pp. 351-363.

Drawing inspiration from Bluestone and Harrison's seminal 1982 book The Deindustrialization of Am... more Drawing inspiration from Bluestone and Harrison's seminal 1982 book The Deindustrialization of America, this article examines the impact of industrial restructuring on Japan's four largest major metropolitan areas (MMAs). Focusing upon (1) the bursting of the Japanese asset bubble in the early 1990's, (2) trade friction with the West, and (3) a significant appreciation of the Japanese Yen relative to the currencies of its major industrial competitors, it reveals how a complex array of factors provoked manufacturing employment decline in these MMAs after 1991. It then describes some of the negative outcomes accompanying industrial restructuring in the four largest MMAs, namely, (1) contracting total employment after 1996, (2

Although small as compared with other national capital regions, the Bratislava Metropolitan Regio... more Although small as compared with other national capital regions, the Bratislava Metropolitan Region's (BMRs) location in southwestern Slovakia and at the confluence of four Central and Eastern European nations (CEE), has for centuries placed it at the center of Europe's major politico-ideological and military battles. Nevertheless, despite its strategic location and its central role in Slovakia's rise to European Union (EU) and European Monetary Union (EMU) status, relatively little has been written about it in English. This profile attempts to help rectify this situation by chronicling some of the region's historical milestones and describing how the joint efforts of the Slovak Government, Volkswagen (VW), and other foreign automakers, have transformed the post-Socialist BMR into a vibrant hub for capitalist automotive production.

Jurisdictions in the Southeast Automotive Core (SEAC), encompassing Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi... more Jurisdictions in the Southeast Automotive Core (SEAC), encompassing Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee, have attracted 8 of the 11 light vehicles assembly plants built by the "New Domestics" in the United States over the past 20 years (i.e., Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai, Volkswagen, Mercedes, and BMW). Through case studies of the Toyota-PUL Alliance of Northeast Mississippi and the Hyundai-Kia Auto Valley Partnership of east-central Alabama and west-central Georgia, this article chronicles how by working together, certain subregions within the SEAC have gained a comparative advantage in their competitions for New Domestics Foreign Direct Investment. Overall, the findings of this study show how local governments in the form of the collaborative region still can be an important economic development agent within an ever-globalizing economy. As a result, this article should prove informative to development scholars and practitioners in the United States and Canada, especially in areas combating economic/fiscal distress.

Ulsan, South Korea is home to the world's largest auto production complex and shipyard, and its s... more Ulsan, South Korea is home to the world's largest auto production complex and shipyard, and its second biggest petrochemicals combine. Drawing upon Jacobs' Contextualized Model of Urban-Regional Development, this article shows how Ulsan's growth path towards becoming one of the world's Great Industrial Cities was decisively shaped by both global and nested factors. While the weights of the various tiers from the global to local have fluctuated over time, no one level has had primacy. Through Ulsan this study seeks to introduce the concept of Great Industrial City and in the process: 1) remind scholars and practitioners about the continued importance of industrial cities for national economies and in global capitalism; 2) demonstrate how the world's city-regions have been decisively shaped by both international forces and embedded/nested factors; 3) enhance the English language reader's knowledge of South Korean urban areas; and 4) encourage scholars to more seriously consider the manufacturing sector when classifying world cities and delineating the global urban hierarchy, and thereby, expand the global-nested city debate beyond merely the analyzing of large financial centers.

This study investigates whether or not income stratification by place has widened within the Toky... more This study investigates whether or not income stratification by place has widened within the Tokyo Metropolitan Region (TMR) over the past 30 years.

This study compares post-1980 central city employment trends in the state of Michigan and the pro... more This study compares post-1980 central city employment trends in the state of Michigan and the province of Ontario, similarsized, closely linked by trade, and situated within the same natural region but in different federalist nations. Guided by interviews with 124 development officials, the study describes how variations in Michigan's and Ontario's central cities' employment mix, "state" approach to development, framework for local authority, and sociodemographic dynamics (e.g., interracial relations, racial distribution, and others) have been among several embedded or contextual factors fostering divergent employment trends in their respective central cities. The study's findings also demonstrate how state/provincial embeddedness has remained especially influential. To help bridge the gap between theory and concrete public policy making, the article's conclusion offers a set of factors to be considered by scholars and practitioners in their efforts to understand and compare growth trends in urban areas. As a group, these elements are called the contextualized model of urban-regional development.

Urban Studies Research, 2011 (1): 1-14.