Santa Fe, New Mexico: North American Institute, 1999

Globalization — the increasing interconnectivity between economies — is here to stay. An offshoot of this globalizing process is the reassessment of what constitutes the component economies of a globalized world. Are they national economies, or something else? The scholars whose work appears in Integrating Cities and Regions make a strong case for the inclusion of regions and cities among the constituent parts; in doing so, they ask us to reconsider how globalization is structured. In Europe, countries are being split apart while simultaneously the European Union is moving towards an integrated, united economic bloc. In North America there is no apparent trend towards a reconstitution of national borders (with the possible exception of Quebec), but new economic regions are emerging that increasingly make the concept of national economies less useful. The stimulus behind much of this global and regional restructuring is the elimination of trade barriers between the three nations that comprise the North American Free Trade Agreement: Canada, the United States, and Mexico. It is the emergence (or re-emergence) of economic regions—including major cities as regions—that is the focus of this book.

The book is the result of a series of conferences and workshops convened between 1994 and 1997. In addition to the two editors, twenty-five scholars, from Mexico, the United States, and Canada, have contributed single- and jointly-authored chapters. The authors are concerned with a constellation of related questions: What is the impact of freer trade on globalization and the emergence of regional economies? What changes are apparent? What drives these changes? And how are governments responding to the new challenges? By examining cases from across the continent—transboundary regions, megacities, and single-nation regions—the contributors are able to shed a great deal of light on these questions.

Unlike many books resulting from workshops and conferences, Integrating Cities and Regions has not merely one, but three introductory sections, setting the stage for the case studies to follow. The short preface by William Miller of Stanford University sets the tone of the book and hints at its major concerns. The formal introduction, by Clint Smith, also at Stanford, provides an excellent overview of the cases to come, and can be read as an executive summary of the entire work. A third Stanford scholar, Clark Reynolds, in his chapter "The Political Economy of Open Regionalism," elaborates an analytical framework for the individual case studies, which allows for direct comparing and contrasting of the cities and regions studied. Reynolds notes the problems of defining regions that exhibit great internal diversity, as well as the increasing impact of technological, financial, and social change. Clearly, this book is no jumbled hodge-podge of conference papers, but a well thought out, sharply focused analysis of a continental issue, well supported by case study evidence.

Three case studies are of transborder regions in the western part of the continent, at the extreme northwest and southwest of the conterminous United States. The first is North America’s best known and perhaps best researched transborder region, Cascadia, which, though variously defined, is generally thought to comprise the Pacific Northwest of the United States and the Canadian province of British Columbia. This region, clearly identifiable by a distinctive name, has a long history of regional identity. Though traditionally dependent on timber and mineral resource extraction, the region is becoming increasingly united through its contemporary economic emphasis on computer software, aerospace, and entertainment industries. The second transborder region, that of San Diego-Tijuana, is more sharply divided by differing standards of living on the two sides of the border. The presence of two languages, and the disparity in economic power between Mexico and the United States, also makes common policy making more difficult than in Cascadia. The third transborder region, Arizona-Sonora, faces some of the same problems as its neighboring region to the west, as well as its additional dependence on resource extraction and maquiladora manufacturing. The authors argue that these latter two sectors are inherently unsustainable, and that the region must consider other options if it is to prosper in the long term.

Transborder regions are one of the three types of case study examined in the book. The second type is that of regions lying entirely within Canada, the United States, or Mexico. Three case studies illustrate this type of region, one in each country. The Canadian and Mexican cases, Newfoundland and Oaxaca respectively, are impoverished or declining regions; they are places that have experienced more bad than good from economic integration. The Newfoundland chapter, by Morley Gunderson of the University of Toronto, investigates the national transfer payment system and the curious unemployment insurance scheme that have been used to maintain at least some level of regional parity between Newfoundland and the rest of Canada. In proposing a series of reforms to the current system, Gunderson notes that regional economies can become dependent on outside assistance, and that the maintenance of employment programs in regions can often work against the movement of capital and labor that freer trade is supposed to engender. The chapter on Oaxaca, one of Mexico’s poorest states, by Raul Livas and Rafael Gamboa, explores a similar situation. Oaxaca, like Newfoundland, is heavily dependent on federal government assistance. Livas and Gamboa conclude that this assistance is best directed towards productive spending rather than social spending—a finding similar in some respects to the Newfoundland example.

Silicon Valley, the now famous nickname of the Santa Clara Valley and surrounding region in California, is a third region examined in the book. Unlike Newfoundland and Oaxaca, Silicon Valley is a prosperous region, and its success is attributed by the chapter authors to both its common sense of identity and purpose, and to the close networks and mutual assistance among commercial, governmental, and educational sectors in the region. Though the Silicon Valley experience is probably not replicable by more depressed regions such as Newfoundland and Oaxaca, the success achieved by close integration and cooperation is a lesson that may benefit all.

The third and final type of region under consideration is the megacities, the giant urban complexes that dominate much of the North American economy. Contributors consider three such cities and their immediate surrounding metropolitan regions: Mexico, New York, and Toronto—each of these the largest and most dominant city in their respective countries. Mexico dominates its country in the same way that Paris dominates France: as a primate city. Mexico contains an enormous proportion of its nation’s industrial, commercial, educational, technological, and cultural capital. Like more traditional regions, megacities are diverse places, with many linked nodes rather than a single center of power. Like other megacities, Mexico has an often turbulent relationship with the rest of the nation, as the authors of this chapter document.

The two other megacities, New York and Toronto, are often compared to each other. The tri-state New York region (which includes parts of New Jersey and Connecticut) is a declining region, as much of its industry and commercial activity shifts towards other parts of the United States. Many of both Toronto’s and New York’s problems stem from conflicts between the core city and its suburbs, and from the absence of a regional authority to coordinate policy and resolve disputes.

The nine case studies presented in the book—three each on transboundary regions, single-nation regions, and city-regions—provide a wealth of data on the geography of prosperity and decline and the impact of freer trade in North America. This data alone would make the book extremely useful in understanding the changing nature of the North American economy. The reader is, however, treated to not just one, but two concluding chapters. The formal conclusion, by Clark Reynolds, is a lengthy consideration of what the case studies mean; the chapter compares and contrasts, and draws forth the key issues of concern in all of the regions considered. In highlighting these issues, Reynolds, like James Wilkie in his afterward to the book, illuminates the central areas of concern for North American regional scholars, as well as the implications for future policy and research.

As befitting a North American study, the introductory and concluding chapters—but not the case studies—appear in Spanish translation as well. I would have preferred to see the case studies ordered as I have done in this review: by the three types of region (transboundary, single-nation, and city), rather than in the seemingly random order in which they appear in the book. With such a structure, the book could have been divided into three parts, which would have helped emphasize the differences and similarities in the types of regions under consideration. An index would also have been useful, as would a map of North America depicting the regions discussed.

Integrating Cities and Regions constitutes one of the most impressive and thorough considerations of regionalization and the regional impacts of freer trade in North America. It is a great pity that only one thousand copies of the book were printed. We can only hope that these few copies are widely distributed and read, and that the editors increase the print run for their projected second volume on regionalization and the Pacific Rim.