Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

City governments everywhere are keen to ensure, as far as possible, that their economies replace lost jobs in declining industries as quickly and efficiently as possible. In that quest, new perspectives on the role and function of hitherto relatively passive elements in the urban fabric such as cultural facilities, banks, and universities have been projected. They are now, increasingly, seen as hubs of the microeconomy around which many other activities, all with economic value, coalesce. In what follows, this view will be explored from a number of angles. The main thrust is an analysis of the emergence of fast-growth industries in the three capital cities of the Baltic States which have undergone significant economic restructuring in recent years. In the original research, the Baltic cities were compared quantitatively and qualitatively with three regeneration cities of similar size in peripheral western Europe: Cardiff, Dublin, and Tampere.The evolution of these cities in three key subeconomies centered upon cultural industries, financial services, and innovative, high-technology industry – all of which show fast employment and turnover growth – is described for the three Baltic capitals of Tallinn in Estonia, Riga in Latvia, and Vilnius in Lithuania. It is shown that the performance of the Baltic cities is highly variable but by no means as lagging as might be anticipated given ... log in or subscribe to read full text