‘A marvellous order’: the spatial and economic structures that make agglomeration economies work in Greater Manchester

Jane Jacobs used the phrase ‘a marvellous order’ to describe the organised complexity which exists in cities. In this presentation Francesca Froy will unpack the spatial and economic configurations that help cities such as Greater Manchester to function as ‘engines of creativity’ in the broadest sense. While urban economies are celebrated for their economic diversity, this diversity is not random, with certain industry sectors being more likely to interrelate with each other, and share skills, knowledge, and products. In parallel, the configurational characteristics of the street network helps to bring these diverse economic capabilities within instrumental reach of each other, producing and reproducing an interrelated city economy. Francesca’s research reveals an overall decline in the capacity of the Greater Manchester’s street network to support agglomeration externalities over time, with emerging implications for policy makers.

Francesca Froy is a Research Associate at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, who also lectures at the Bartlett School of Planning. Her research centres on the use of network theory to better understand economic diversity and complexity. She also explores the morphology of street networks in cities using a tool called Space Syntax. Until June 2015 she was a senior policy analyst at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) where she coordinated international reviews of government policies to support local and regional economic development. She is working on a series of Alan Turing Institute projects looking at skills-diversification in cities, and recently guest-edited a Special Edition of the Local Economy Journal focused on place-based industrial strategies. Her articles can be found in a number of peer-reviewed academic journals including the Oxford Review of Economic Policy and the European Planning Journal.