Abdul Shaban (p)

Umut Türk

The rise of digital age and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have had immense impact on geographical distance and time. The geography has become more fluid in nature while distance have become compressed. The location of industrial and commercial units has become more flexible and less restrictive. For many, this rise of digital technologies is heralding a death of geography and distance. However, the ‘death’ narrative seems to be premature conclusion. Using case study of highly digitalised and ICT driven ‘warehousing enterprises’ at the periphery of Mumbai, this paper argues that weight and distance do matter in industrial locations. The death of distance may be true for the information and capital flows because of new technologies, but not for material goods and labour. As such, the locational decision in sustainability of industries remains a factor of prime importance, and industries do move to take relative advantage of either labour, good harbour/ports, market, raw materials, transaction costs, and/or agglomerate to save production costs, etc. The paper argues that impact of digitalization and ICT on economic geography has been ‘transformative’ in nature rather than ‘obliterative’ of geography. The paper evaluates the importance of locations in the digital age through empirical study.

John Östh (p), Umut Turk (p), Karima Kourtit (p) & Peter Nijkamp (p)

Danny Czamanski

Alexandru Banica (p), Ramona Tiganasu, Peter Nijkamp, Karima Kourtit

Abdul Shaban

The current paper aims to study the European territorial disparities in implementing the “twin transitions” and the clusters of countries and regions with similar features and strategic approaches in addressing digitalization and green transition in relation to the institutional drivers. Our research assesses the structural and spatial convergence or divergence between green (and) digital transition and the institutional framework, by considering three significant objectives: a) To evaluate the dynamics of digitalization and green transition within the EU; b) To assess the similarities/dissimilarities in planning digital and green transition as they transpire from the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs) of member states; c) To analyze how institutions and governance influence the actual level and the strategic approach in digitalization and sustainable transition. In our approach, we first start with the attempt to measure environmental and digital performance using two internationally established indexes applied at the national level. Secondly, we include an assessment of the convergences and divergences regarding the digital and environmental components covered in the NRRPs of the EU countries. To emphasize the spatial similarities/dissimilarities and the overall role of institutions in accelerating or slowing down the green and digital transition at both national and regional levels, we combine classical statistical methods (Linear correlation, Analytical Hierarchy clustering, and Logistic regression) with the modern ones, e.g. Machine Learning techniques. The results support the hypothesis that these convergences relate to the institutions’ quality and ability to build and implement viable strategies in the medium and long term. The conclusions converge towards a still strongly heterogeneous European territory, where the digital divide and sustainability impact the resilience capacity. The gaps are, in many cases, difficult to recover, especially in conditions where economic, social and environmental differences are reflected and inter-conditioned by a less adaptable institutional framework. One solution is putting people at the centre of technological innovation while enhancing environmental responsibility.

Danny Czamanski (p), Dani Broitman

Alexandru Banica

The physical structure of cities is the result of decisions by a myriad of various urbanites where to live, where to work, and where to establish firms. The decisions by individuals create spatial order spontaneously. In the absence of obstacles, the efficiently working process of self-organization should lead to an equilibrium of a closed urban system in which all the cities are of similar size and economic structure.
In reality, however, cities differ in size. Their distribution displays a power law distribution of sizes known as the rank-size rule. The economic composition of cities differs as well. This reality is the result of particular pathologies of self-organization. The common explanation of the urban reality is known as the new economic geography. Due to increasing returns to scale and transportation costs, some cities emerge as large urban agglomerations while other cities do not. It is noteworthy that in some countries, due to the nature of their economic bases, industrial economies of scale are almost non-existent and transportation costs are minimal. Such is the case in Israel. Yet, here we also witness power law of city sizes.
We propose an alternate explanation for the extant reality. The process of self-organization in some countries is marred by obstacles that prevent the spontaneous formation of equilibrium that leads to cities of similar sizes and economic structure. The decisions of urbanites where to work and live reflect information available to them. The linkages between firms, suppliers and consumers are subject to communication filters that affect decisions. The sources of information are distorted while passing through communication networks and lead to decisions that create large urban agglomerations alongside smaller cities, towns and villages.