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Globalization and Sustainable Urban-Regional Development

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Urban and Rural Development".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 16178

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Kevin H. Zhang

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Guest Editor

Department of Economics, Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790-4200, USA
Interests: international economics; economic development; urban and regional economics; innovation and technology; industrial development

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Urban-regional development is facing challenges of sustainability. In addition to environmental sustainability, which has been largely addressed in the literature, growth sustainability has been a key issue to all cities/regions, but the relevant studies have been limited. The growth sustainability requires continuous forces to drive economic development. Three driving forces may be identified from the economic history and literature: resources (such as cheap labor and land), efficiency (such as scale economies and specialization), and innovation (i.e., technology and business models). In the increasingly integrated world economy, how does globalization affect sustainable urban-regional development? In the context of sustainability, globalization means tighter links between all markets affecting resources, efficiency, and innovation. While indigenous efforts in technology and infrastructure appear to be important to urban–regional development, globalization through international trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) has become central to sustainable development as global production systems have grown in importance. To obtain rewarding and sustainable growth, a city/region must build its own growth capabilities through connecting external sources of technology and market access. The objective of this Special Issue is to compile the cutting-edge studies on the link between globalization and sustainable cities/regional and their interactions. Specifically, this Special Issue invites theoretical and empirical studies on the following themes, although other relevant topics will also be considered:

Competitive theories of growth sustainability under globalization
Theoretical framework of urban–regional development under globalization
Government policies and the globalization-growth sustainability link
Policy intervention and sustainable urban/regional development
Globalization and resource-driven urban/regional development
Globalization and efficiency-driven urban/regional development
Globalization and innovation-driven urban/regional development
Globalization and industrial upgrading in cities/regions
Rising wages and globalization in urban/regional development
Role of international trade in sustainable cities/regions
Role of FDI in sustainable cities/regions
Globalization and export upgrading in cities/regions
Globalization and industrial competitiveness in cities/regions
FDI, trade, and industrial agglomerations
FDI, trade, and industrial clusters

Prof. Dr. Kevin H. Zhang
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

growth sustainability;
sustainable cities/regions;
globalization;
international trade;
foreign direct investment;
resource- and efficiency-driven growth;
innovation;
export and industrial upgrading;
industrial clusters;
regional agglomerations

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 902 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Embrace or Not? An Empirical Study of the Impact of Globalization on the Country’s Sustainability in the Case of NAFTA

by Hexian Wang, Wei Liu, Mengyuan Zhu and Qing Wang

Sustainability 2018, 10(10), 3436; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10103436 - 26 Sep 2018

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3597

Abstract

This paper investigates the international trade role in economic development and sustainability. Specifically, a trade agreement is one of the most popular ways for a country to participate in trade, therefore we aim to estimate the relationship between a free trade agreement (FTA) and economic development on a country level, using the North American Free Trade Agreement as an example. Sustainability on an industrial level is also discussed in parallel. To achieve this, a counterfactual analysis is used to generate the welfare with and without the trade agreement to draw inference on the sustainability analysis. We find that the FTA does facilitate a country’s sustainability. However, it is less clear on an industrial level. This finding provides important evidence relating to a country’s sustainable development and has broadened the study scope regarding the impact of participating in an FTA with regard to economic sustainability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Globalization and Sustainable Urban-Regional Development)

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21 pages, 1511 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Do Temporary Creative Clusters Promote Innovation in an Emerging Economy?—A Case Study of the Beijing Design Week

by Huasheng Zhu, Kebi Chen and Yunlong Lian

Sustainability 2018, 10(3), 767; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10030767 - 11 Mar 2018

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 4207

Abstract

Extant research indicates that temporary clusters, such as trade fairs and exhibitions, play a significant role in knowledge dissemination and innovation by creating global buzz, so they are beneficial to building global pipelines. However, these findings are mainly based on the experiences in the manufacturing sectors of developed countries. This paper, however, chooses Beijing as a case to examine whether or not international exhibitions in creative industries contribute to innovation in emerging economies. Based on questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews conducted in 2015–2016, this paper uses a structural equation model (SEM), with three latent variables related to global buzz, global pipelines, and information acquisition, to identify the internal patterns of exhibition innovation. The results indicate that there exists innovation generated from temporary clusters in knowledge-intensive sectors as well as emerging economies. Global buzz and global pipelines construct a favorable interaction ecology. However, global buzz plays a greater role than global pipelines. This insight should help organizers improve creative exhibitions in terms of innovation and provide a deeper understanding of the relationships between innovation, global buzz, and global pipelines in temporary clusters. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Globalization and Sustainable Urban-Regional Development)

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2622 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Regional Economic Resilience: Resistance and Recoverability of Resource-Based Cities during Economic Crises in Northeast China

by Juntao Tan, Kevin Lo, Fangdao Qiu, Wenxin Liu, Jing Li and Pingyu Zhang

Sustainability 2017, 9(12), 2136; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9122136 - 30 Nov 2017

Cited by 36 | Viewed by 5336

Abstract

This paper quantitatively analyzes the economic resilience of resource-based cities (RBCs) in Northeast China in terms of resistance and recoverability during two economic crises: the Asian financial crisis and the global financial crisis. Moreover, it analyzes the main factors that affected regional resilience. There are three main findings. First, the RBCs in general demonstrated poor resistance during both recessions, but there were variations among the different types of RBCs. Petroleum and metal cities demonstrated the most resistance, whereas coal cities performed the worst. Second, the influential factors affecting economic resilience varied across the two economic cycles, but location advantage, research and development (R and D) intensity, foreign trade dependence ratio, and supporting policies had positive effects on resilience during both economic cycles, while the proportion of employed persons in resource industries had a negative effect. Industrial diversity had a weak and ambiguous effect on resilience. Third, the secondary industry was more resilient during the Asian financial crisis, but the tertiary industry was more resilient during the global financial crisis. This shift may be attributed to both the nature of the crises and the strength of the sectors at the time of the crises. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Globalization and Sustainable Urban-Regional Development)

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Other

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10 pages, 1713 KiB

Open AccessCase Report

Analysis of the Resilience of Common-Pool Resources during Globalization: The Case of Jeju Common Ranches in Korea

by Kyungmin Kim, Juhee Kim, Kijong Cho, Jeong-Gyu Kim and Seunghun Hyun

Sustainability 2018, 10(12), 4346; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10124346 - 22 Nov 2018

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2096

Abstract

A common-pool resource (CPR) is a type of good consisting of a natural or human-made resource system. Jeju common ranches are historical CPRs located in Jeju Province where mid-mountainous grassland has been shared for livestock farming by the members of adjacent villages since the 10th century. Because of the recent globalization movement, the number of ranches has decreased from 126 in the 1940s to only 53 in 2015; while the majority of the ranches did not survive the transformation, others have remained active by adopting various solutions. In this study, we analyzed the administrative characteristics of the CPRs to explain their current status (i.e., extinction or continuance as a common property) using logistic regression analysis. From this analysis, four statistically meaningful variables were extracted using a forward stepwise selection method; these include the type of ranch management, ratio of land area to population, number of internal committees in the village, and number of local government grants. These variables correlate well with previously recognized ‘community resilience dimensions’ and can be used to explain the fate of the Jeju common ranches during the study period. This study elucidates what community dimensions should be fortified to promote the resilience of Jeju common ranches in order to effectively cope with the on-going effects of globalization. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Globalization and Sustainable Urban-Regional Development)

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