Metropolitan economy

A metropolitan economy refers to the cohesive, naturally evolving concentration of industries, commerce, markets, firms, housing, human capital, infrastructure and other economic elements that are comprised in a particular metropolitan area. Rather than the definition of distinct urban and suburban economies that evolve and function independently, a metropolitan economy encompasses all interdependent jurisdictions of particular regional clusters. This type of economy has all its units functioning together in a trans-boundary landscape that often crosses city, county, state, province, and even national lines. Metropolitan economies expand from the parochial view taken in urban economics which focuses entirely on a city's spatial structure, and broadens it into a metropolitan's spatial and social/economic structure. In the latest evolution of global economic restructuring, metropolitan economies have become as experts at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program assert, "the engines of the New Economy". Globalization has essentially reconfigured localities, placing value on the unique, innovative assets that have been historically formed and attuned to the local area. Embodied within metropolitan economies is what Saskia Sassen describes as the global city but branches out to include the central business district and its satellites. The accelerated advancement of transportation and communications, particularly with capital flight, outsourcing, and supply chain logistics, has virtually removed factor endowments and comparative advantage concepts. In its wake, metropolitan economies are competing globally in specialized sectors and fields tailored to their regional clusters, a term coined by Harvard Professor Michael Porter (i.e., information technology in greater San Francisco; leather shoe and apparel textiles industry in Florence, Italy; digital media and electronics in Seoul, South Korea). More and more developed nations are becoming defined and fueled by their local, metropolitan economies.