In my daily dose of Krugman I really enjoyed this:

China also derives big advantages from the fact that so much of the supply chain is already there. A former Apple executive explained: “You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That’s the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away.”

This is familiar territory to students of economic geography: the advantages of industrial clusters — in which producers, specialized suppliers, and workers huddle together to their mutual benefit — have been a running theme since the 19th century.

And Chinese manufacturing isn’t the only conspicuous example of these advantages in the modern world.”

Growth Pole Theory! Aggregation Economies! & Bears! Oh My!

Space & Place actually matter! To an economist no less! Halleluja!

And never EVER leave home without your geographer. Obviously Krugman remembered his!

But seriously, all of these concepts can be applied, really to any economy, not just industrial. Clustering of mutually supportive enterprises is also a concept I’ve been hammering on in my comment on the Madison Downtown Plan as well as on the 100 Block of State Street debâcle. It just isn’t something the current planner-mindset can grasp.

Happily, former Madison Alder Tim Gruber, just wrote an interesting post that kind of gets at the notion of clustering of activities, not necessarily even similar activities, to make urban spaces real places. At least 10 different activities in the same place. They call it ‘Placemaking’ in the biz.

Or as I like to say, Places for People.