IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/loceco/v34y2019i4p364-381.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Maker Faire of Rome as a window of observation on the new perspectives for local economic development and the new urban entrepreneurial ecosystems

Author

Listed:
  • Stefania Fiorentino

Abstract

The rise of the Maker Movement – representing small businesses active in the digital fabrication and the creative industry field – is indicative of the emergence of a new type of urban economy and labour regulations in many cities. Trade fairs have been central to the dynamics of these makers as well as an institutional tool to build an economic reputation for the place hosting them. This paper draws upon a survey of exhibitors at, and interviews with organizers of, the Maker Faire of Rome 2015 to describe the features of this unfolding entrepreneurial world. The findings indicate that, although cities are once again the nexus of contemporary innovation trends, these are deeply intertwined with the surrounding socio-political context. Specifically, and in some contrast to the extant literature on creativity, the Rome case indicates the salience of Makers to those urban economies most in need of regeneration.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefania Fiorentino, 2019. "The Maker Faire of Rome as a window of observation on the new perspectives for local economic development and the new urban entrepreneurial ecosystems," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 34(4), pages 364-381, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:loceco:v:34:y:2019:i:4:p:364-381
    DOI: 10.1177/0269094219854999
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0269094219854999
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0269094219854999?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Storper & Anthony J. Venables, 2004. "Buzz: face-to-face contact and the urban economy," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(4), pages 351-370, August.
    2. Gilles Duranton & Diego Puga, 2001. "Nursery Cities: Urban Diversity, Process Innovation, and the Life Cycle of Products," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1454-1477, December.
    3. Scott, Allen J., 2010. "Cultural economy and the creative field of the city," MPRA Paper 32108, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Allen John Scott, 2014. "Beyond the Creative City: Cognitive--Cultural Capitalism and the New Urbanism," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(4), pages 565-578, April.
    5. Laura Wolf-Powers & Marc Doussard & Greg Schrock & Charles Heying & Max Eisenburger & Stephen Marotta, 2017. "The Maker Movement and Urban Economic Development," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 83(4), pages 365-376, October.
    6. Dale Dougherty, 2012. "The Maker Movement," Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, MIT Press, vol. 7(3), pages 11-14, July.
    7. Dominic Power & Johan Jansson, 2008. "Cyclical Clusters in Global Circuits: Overlapping Spaces in Furniture Trade Fairs," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 84(4), pages 423-448, October.
    8. Michael Storper & Allen J. Scott, 2009. "Rethinking human capital, creativity and urban growth," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 9(2), pages 147-167, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carla M. Kayanan, 2022. "A critique of innovation districts: Entrepreneurial living and the burden of shouldering urban development," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 54(1), pages 50-66, February.
    2. Gordon L. Clark, 2016. "The Components of Talent: Company Size and Financial Centres in the European Investment Management Industry," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(1), pages 168-181, January.
    3. Patrizia Casadei & Neil Lee, 2020. "Global cities, creative industries and their representation on social media: A micro-data analysis of Twitter data on the fashion industry," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(6), pages 1195-1220, September.
    4. Sébastien Breau & Dieter F. Kogler & Kenyon C. Bolton, 2014. "On the Relationship between Innovation and Wage Inequality: New Evidence from Canadian Cities," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 90(4), pages 351-373, October.
    5. Robert Huggins & Piers Thompson, 2015. "Entrepreneurship, innovation and regional growth: a network theory," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 103-128, June.
    6. Max Nathan & Emma Vandore, 2014. "Here Be Startups: Exploring London's ‘Tech City’ Digital Cluster," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 46(10), pages 2283-2299, October.
    7. Copercini Marco, 2016. "Berlin As a Creative Field: Deconstructing the Role of the Urban Context in Creative Production," Quaestiones Geographicae, Sciendo, vol. 35(4), pages 121-132, December.
    8. Lange Bastian & Power Dominic & Suwala Lech, 2014. "Geographies of field-configuring events," ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography, De Gruyter, vol. 58(1), pages 187-201, October.
    9. Thomas Kemeny, 2013. "Immigrant Diversity and Economic Development in Cities: A Critical Review," SERC Discussion Papers 0149, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    10. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Riccardo Crescenzi, 2008. "Mountains in a flat world: why proximity still matters for the location of economic activity," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 1(3), pages 371-388.
    11. Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés & Zhang, Min, 2020. "The cost of weak institutions for innovation in China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    12. Marte C.W. Solheim & Ron Boschma & Sverre Herstad, 2018. "Related variety, unrelated variety and the novelty content of firm innovation in urban and non-urban locations," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1836, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Oct 2018.
    13. Frederick van der Ploeg & Steven Poelhekke, 2008. "Globalization and the rise of mega-cities in the developing world," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 1(3), pages 477-501.
    14. Diemer, Andreas & Regan, Tanner, 2022. "No inventor is an island: Social connectedness and the geography of knowledge flows in the US," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(2).
    15. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2014. "The Growth of Cities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 781-853, Elsevier.
    16. Michael Storper, 2010. "Agglomeration, Trade, And Spatial Development: Bringing Dynamics Back In," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 313-342, February.
    17. Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés & Lee, Neil, 2020. "Hipsters vs. geeks? Creative workers, STEM and innovation in US cities," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103974, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Aurélie LALANNE & Guillaume POUYANNE, 2012. "Ten years of metropolization in economics: a bibliometric approach (In French)," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2012-11, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    19. Tubiana, Matteo & Miguelez, Ernest & Moreno, Rosina, 2022. "In knowledge we trust: Learning-by-interacting and the productivity of inventors," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(1).
    20. Gao, Kang & Yuan, Yijun, 2022. "Government intervention, spillover effect and urban innovation performance: Empirical evidence from national innovative city pilot policy in China," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:loceco:v:34:y:2019:i:4:p:364-381. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/index.shtml .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.