Sean Safford

Running to Stand Still: Status and the Geographic Division of Labor

Abstract

From the 1950s to the 1990s, the economic geography of the United States experienced significant changes.  In the middle of the century, cities were best characterized by their industrial profile.  But by the later period, they are better characterized by occupations.  In this paper, I argue that at least part of that shift can be explained by companies' strategic decision to locate activities in order to take advantage (or in some cases, avoid) of the effects of geographically bounded occupational status hierarchies.