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GRMD 2321 Economic Geography
(經濟地理)
2010-2011, 2nd Term
Instructor:
Tutor:
Venue :
Time :
Professor Jiang XU, Rm. 228, Wong Foo Yuan Building, Tel: 2609-6475
Email: jiangxu@cuhk.edu.hk
Miss Chen Yanyan, Rm. 232, Wong Foo Yuan Building, Tel: 2609-6537
Email: yanyan@cuhk.edu.hk
ELB 401
MONDAY: 2:30 pm – 4:15 pm
(1) Course Description
The geographer’s viewpoint is a spatial one, focusing on the content of areas, their
interactions and relationships with other areas, and on the behavior and processes that give
rise to the patterns, structure, and organization of space. The spatial arrangement of human
economic activity is (for the most part) a reflection of the aspatial (institutional, political,
economic and social) processes operating in society, such as those generating employment,
unemployment, technological change, etc. Consequently, the patterns, structures, and
organization of economic space are an outcome of the many and complex processes inherent
in the way how society is organized.
This course will provide an overview of economic-geographical key theories and concepts in
analyzing economic processes at various geographical scales. To this end, the relationships
between space, economy and society will be discussed using a number of cases. Topics cover
globalization and local development, and how they work together to shape spatial
organization and economic change, location of production and transnational corporations, and
spatial interaction and network. The course provides an excellent vehicle toward
understanding today’s increasingly interdependent world.
(2) Learning Objectives
The course is designed to introduce you to the study of economic systems from a geographic
perspective. It is intended for both the student who is considering planning as a major field of
study in the future and the student with primary interest in a related field that requires
knowledge of economic growth at various geographical scales. The general objective of this
course will be to provide an overview of the field of economic geography and its linkages to
related issues of development and underdevelopment, international business, and the global
economy. This objective can be further divided into following two components:

To introduce geographical approach in understanding economic phenomenon
Economic geography focuses on the ways in which economic activity is stretched over the
space of the earth’s surface. Economists too rarely take the spatial dimension seriously, a
perspective that implies that all economic activity takes place on the head of a pin.
Geographers, by contrast, are interested in the manner in which social relations and
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activities occur unevenly over space, the ways in which local places and the global
economy are intertwined, and the difference that location makes to how economic activity
is organized. No social process occurs in exactly the same way in different places. Thus,
where and when economic activity occurs has a profound influence on how it occurs.
Space, then, can no longer be relegated to the sidelines. As globalization has made small
differences among places increasingly, space has become more, not less, important.

To understand the impacts of globalization and responses at different geographical scales
Globalization – the growing integration of economies and societies around the world –
continues to transform the world economy at an ever-increasing rate. This new world
economy links distant peoples and places so that what happens in one place shapes what
happens in another through networks of interdependence. While most people recognize
the widespread changes brought about by globalization, many disagree on whether the
benefits outweigh the costs. Economic geography provides an excellent vehicle toward
understanding today’s increasingly interdependent world.
(3) Expected Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this course, the student should be able to
 Describe the goals, concepts, and subject matter of economic geography
 Related theories from economic geography to interpret the economic geography of
specific places and to understand economic problems their encounter in daily life.
 Assess how economic processes help to structure specific places and the lives of people
living in those places.
 Understand how economic processes connect their own lives to those of others and how
economic choices they make affect the lives of other people.
(4) Teaching and Learning Activities
 Introduction of concepts and methods (weekly lectures)
 Understanding of concepts and methods for describing and analyzing current economic
issues from geographical approach (essay/presentation/tutorial)
 Geographical exploration of current economic issue (one essay, writing and presentation)
(5) Topics*
Week
1
2
3
4
5
Topic
Overview
Getting Acquainted with economic geography
Debating the economy, development, and globalization
Comprehending Economic Space
World Apart: Uneven Development
Commodity Chain
Tutorial 1: A Year without “Made in China”
Team up with another student for essay projects
Chinese New Year Vacation
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6
7
8
Technology, distance and agglomeration
Site visit (details will be announced later on)
Commodifying the nature
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10
11
12
13
14
Unveiling Economic Space
The State (1)
The State (2)
Transnational corporation (1)
Transnational corporation (2)
Cases of TNCs
Essay presentation
Tutorial 2: Presentation
Adding social elements to the economy
Socialized economic life
Essay due
* This is a tentative list of topics. Final topics may be changed by the instructor.
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(6) Readings
(A) Essential
Basic Textbook:
Coe, Neil M., Kelly, Philip F, Yeung, Henry W. C. (2007) Economic Geography: A
Contemporary Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing (HF1025 .C73 2007)
Alternative Textbooks:
Clark, G.L., Feldman, M.P., Gertler, M.S. (eds) (2000). The Oxford Handbook of Economic
Geography, Oxford: Oxford University Press (HF1025 .O94 2000)
Dickens Peter (2007) Global Shift: Reshaping The Global Economic Map in The 21st Century,
London: The Guilford Press (5th edition) (Earlier version available at university library:
HD2321 .D53 2003)
(B) Suggested reading by course section (Reference listed here are considered important
readings. For other readings, please refer to the basic textbook)
(Week 1 - 2) Overview
Part I, Coe, Neil M., Kelly, Philip F, Yeung, Henry W. C. (2007) Economic Geography: A
Contemporary Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing (HF1025 .C73 2007).
Dicken, P. (2004) Geographers and ‘globalization’: (yet) another missed boat?, Transactions
of the Institute of British Geographers, 29(1): 5-26.
Barnes, T.J., Peck, J., Sheppard, E. and Tickell, A. (eds) (2003) The Economic Geography,
Oxford: Blackwell.
Cameron, A. and Palan, R. (2004), The Imagined Economies of Globalization, London: Sage.
Castree, N. (2004) Economy and culture are dead! Long live economy and culture! Progress
in Human Geography, 28(2): 204-26.
Scott, A.J. (2000) ‘Economic geography: the great last half century’, Cambridge Journal of
Economics, 24(4): 483-504.
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(Weeks 3) Uneven development
Chapter 3, Coe, Neil M., Kelly, Philip F, Yeung, Henry W. C. (2007) Economic Geography: A
Contemporary Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing (HF1025 .C73 2007).
Part I, Dickens Peter (2007) Global Shift: Reshaping The Global Economic Map in The 21st
Century, London: The Guilford Press (5th edition) (Earlier version available at
university library: HD2321 .D53 2003)
Castree, N. and Gregory, D. (2006) David Harvey: A critical reader, Oxford: Blackwell.
Chapters by Peet and Thrift, Peet, R. and Thrift, N. (1989) New Models in Geography, 2 vols,
London: Unwin Hyman.
Swyngedouw, E. (2000) The Marxian alternative: historical-geographical materialism and the
political economy of the northern core region, Economic Geography, 63(2): 160-82.
(Weeks 4) Commodity chain
Chapter 4, Coe, Neil M., Kelly, Philip F, Yeung, Henry W. C. (2007) Economic Geography: A
Contemporary Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing (HF1025 .C73 2007).
Chapter 1 & 2, Dickens Peter (2007) Global Shift: Reshaping The Global Economic Map in
The 21st Century, London: The Guilford Press (5th edition) (Earlier version available at
university library: HD2321 .D53 2003)
Coe, N., Hess, M., Yeung, H., Dicken, P., and Henderson, J. (2004) ‘”Globalizing” regional
development: a global production networks perspective’, Transactions, Institute of
British Geographers, 29: 468-484.
Gereffi, G. (1994) The organization of buyer-driven global commodity chain: how US
retailers shape overseas production network, in G. Gereffi and M. Korzeniewicz (eds)
Commodity Chains and Global Development, Westport, CT: Praeger, pp. 95-122.
Gereffi, G., Humphrey, J. and Sturgeon, T. (2005) The governance of global value chain,
Review of International Political Economy, 12: 78-104.
Harvey, D. (1989) Editorial: a breakfast vision, Geography Review, 3:1.
Hughes, A. (2005) Corporate strategy and the management of ethical trade; the case of the
UK food and clothing retailers, Environment and Planning A, 37: 1145-63.
(Weeks 5 & 8) Technology and nature as commodity
Chapter 5 & 6, Coe, Neil M., Kelly, Philip F, Yeung, Henry W. C. (2007) Economic
Geography: A Contemporary Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing
(HF1025 .C73 2007).
Chapter 3, Dickens Peter (2007) Global Shift: Reshaping The Global Economic Map in The
21st Century, London: The Guilford Press (5th edition) (Earlier version available at
university library: HD2321 .D53 2003)
Angel, D. (2000) Environmental innovation and regulation, in G.L. Clark, M. Feldman and
M.S. Gertler (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Economic Geography, Oxford: Oxford
University Press (HF1025 .O94 2000), pp. 607-22.
Bryson, J. and Henry, N. (2005) The global production system: from Fordism to post-Fordism,
in P. Daniels, M. Bradshaw, D. Shaw, and J. Sidaway (eds) An Introduction to Human
Geography: Issue for the 21st Century, Harlow: Pearson, pp. 313-35.
Castree, N. (2003) Commodifying what nature? Progress in Human Geography, 27(3): 273-97.
Gibbs D. (2006) Prospects for an environmental economic geography: linking ecological
modernisation and regulationist approaches, Economic Geography, 82: 193-215.
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Markusen, A. (1996) Sticky places in slippery spaces: a typology of industrial districts,
Economic Geography, 72: 293-313.
(Week 9 - 13) Unveiling economic space: actors
Part III, Coe, Neil M., Kelly, Philip F, Yeung, Henry W. C. (2007) Economic Geography: A
Contemporary Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing (HF1025 .C73 2007).
Chapter 4, 5 and 6, Dickens Peter (2007) Global Shift: Reshaping The Global Economic Map
in The 21st Century, London: The Guilford Press (5th edition) (Earlier version available
at university library: HD2321 .D53 2003)
Brenner, N. (1999), ‘Globalisation as reterritorialisation: the re-scaling of urban governance
in the European Union’, Urban Studies, 36: 431-51.
Brenner, N. (2003), ‘Metropolitan institutional reform and the rescaling of state space in
contemporary western Europe’, European Urban and Regional Studies, 10(4): 297324.
Brenner, N., Jessop, B., Jones, M. and MacLeod, G. (eds) State/Space, Oxford: Blackwell.
Castree, N.,Coe, N.M., Ward, K. and Samers, M. (2004) Spaces of Work: Global Capitalism
and the Geographies of Labour, London: Sage.
Coe, N. M. and Lee, Y.S. (2006) The strategic localization of transnational retailers: the case
of Samsung-Tesco in South Korea, Economic Geography, 82: 61-88.
Coe, N., Hess, M., Yeung, H., Dicken, P., and Henderson, J. (2004) ‘”Globalizing” regional
development: a global production networks perspective’, Transactions, Institute of
British Geographers, 29: 468-484.
Dicken, P. (2004) Geographers and ‘globalization’: (yet) another missed boat?, Transactions
of the Institute of British Geographers, 29(1): 5-26.
MacLeod, G. and Goodwin, M. (1999) Space, scale and state strategy: rethinking urban and
regional governance, Progress in Human Geography, 23: 503-27.
Pun, N. (2007) Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace, Durham:
Duke University Press
Wu, F, Xu, J and Yeh, A G O (2007) Market, State and Space: Urban Development in PostReform China. London and New York: Routledge.
Xu, J (2008), 'Governing city regions in China: theoretical discourses and perspectives for
regional strategic planning', Town Planning Review, 79(2-3): 157-185.
Xu, J and Yeh, A G O (2009), 'Decoding urban land governance: state reconstruction in
contemporary Chinese cities', Urban Studies, 46(3): 559-581.
Yang, Y. R. and Hsia, C-J. (2007) Spatial clustering and organizational dynamics of transborder production networks: a case study of Taiwanese IT companies in the Greater
Suzhou Area, China, Environment and Planning A, 39(6), pp. 1346-63.
(Week 15) Socializing economic life
Part IV, Neil M., Kelly, Philip F, Yeung, Henry W. C. (2007) Economic Geography: A
Contemporary Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing (HF1025 .C73 2007).
Domosh, M. and Seager, J.K. (2001) Putting Women in Place: Feminist Geograpiers Make
Sense of the World, New York: Cuildford Press.
McDowell, L. (1999) Gender, Identity and Place: Understanding Feminist Geographies,
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Thrift, N. (2000a) Perfoming cultures in the new economy, Annals of the Association of
American Geographers, 90: 674-92.
Thrift, N. (2000b) Pandora’s box? Cultural geographies of economies, in G.L. Clark, M.A.
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Feldman and M.S. Gertler (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Economic Geography,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 689-704 (HF1025 .O94 2000)
(C) Useful journals available:
Annals of the Association of American Geographers
Cambridge Journal of Economics
Economic Geography
Environment and Planning A
Environment and Planning D
Journal of Economic Geography
Progress in Human Geography
Regional Studies
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
Urban Geography
Urban Studies
(D) Suggested websites



The Web Book of Regional Science (http://www.rri.wvu.edu/regscweb.htm)
Harvey, D. (2007) KPFA radio interview with geographer David Harvey about the origins,
trajectory, and significance of free market fundamentalism. Link here:
http://kpfa.org/archive/id/4832
http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/ to learn about the Fair Trade Foundation
(7) Tutorials
Detailed tutorial materials will be posted on the WebCT. It is critically important for
everyone to read the materials ahead of time – please do not register for this class if you
intend on showing up for discussion sessions in an unprepared state of mind. It will be
extremely useful if you can read more related materials, and think critically before showing
up for discussion.
Tutorial 1: A Year without ‘Made in China’
This tutorial will be conducted between Week 4 and 5. It will last around 1.5 – 2 hours.
Detailed arrangement and references will be announced separately and posted on the course
WebCT.
What: Globalization has attracted lots of discussion and influenced every aspects of our life.
“Made in China” is a commonly realized phenomenon, has become the cover story of Times,
The Economists etc. This tutorial aims to understand this phenomenon from a video named
“Made in China: Globalization and the Factory Workers” and a book “A Year without ‘Made
in China’ (沒有中國製造的一年)”. Those materials are not simply about China but are tales
of how the world has changed and, more importantly, where the world economy is heading to.
How: (1) The video which lasts for around 30 min will be played first; (2) After the video,
read the text extracted from the book A Year without Made in China; and (3) The class will be
divided into 4 groups. Four questions will be prepared for group discussions. Each group
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should spend around 20 minutes go through all 4 questions. After the discussion, each group
should send representatives to share their views on respective question (i.e. group 1 reports
question no.1, group 2 question no.2 and so on) Sharing time would be 15 min per group.
Tutorial 2: Student Presentation Continued
Student presentations for their essays will be arranged on April 11, 2011. If we cannot finish,
we will have one more tutorial between Week 14 – 15 to continue the presentation session.
(8) Essay and Presentation
Format
Essay is a team project. Each team will submit one essay. Students are asked to form into 2person or 3 person teams (depend on the number of students). Team information has to be
provided to the TA after the tutorial 1.
Essay
The essay is to be an "empirically based research essay". The focus is to be on the economic
space economy of a country and you can select any topic discussed in the textbook. You may
focus on the entire country or on a particular region with a specific economic problem. For
example, you could focus on the country of Germany and evaluate different regions as
potential locations for specific firms or industries. Or, you could focus on the chronic
unemployment problem in the eastern part of Germany or the demise of heavy industry and
the mining sector in the Ruhr region of western Germany and offer possible solutions for
these regional problems. Or, you could choose to discuss industrial restructuring or industrial
cluster in the Pearl River Delta or any other regions in China. You have to raise the question,
establish your arguments, and try to use data and other available information to support your
arguments. Excellent background data are available through the Internet. See for instance:
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ or
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/0,,pagePK:180619~theSi
tePK:136917,00.html.
Requirement
Essays are to be typed 1.5-spaced and must be a minimum of 4,000 words, properly
referenced as an academic writing (see Appendix A). Essays without properly cited
references will lose points. Essays are due on April 26, 2011. You are required to submit your
essay to the VeriGuide System, and then hand in a hardcopy with a receipt to the TA before
the deadline. Late submission will be accepted by the TA for grading with a 20% per day
penalty. Essay that are strongly argued and evidenced with critical thinking will be graded ‘A’.
How to build up your critically thinking skill can be found in Appendix B.
Presentation of student essays
For your presentation you will use PowerPoint and your presentation will last 10 minutes plus
five minutes Q&A. Copies of your PowerPoint presentation should be sent to the TA on April
10, 2011 at the latest. Early submission is welcome.
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Presentation sessions will be chaired by Professor Xu and the TA. The format is similar to
workshop. In addition to your presentation, we will discuss a number of local and regional
issues that are closely related to your essay. All students are strongly recommended to come
to presentation sessions. This is a good opportunity to gather comments from the teacher and
your fellow students to improve your essay before the final submission. During these sessions,
you are going to explore issues we may not be able to discuss during class. So, please try your
best to come.
(9) Assessment Schemes
Tutorial (attendance and discussion)
Essay (writing + presentation)
Final exam
20%
35%
45%
(10) Feedback for Evaluation
Two anonymous course evaluations (one in the fourth week and one in the last week) will be
conducted to get feedback about the course from students.
(11) Academic Honesty Guidelines
All work you submit for this course must be entirely the creation of you (and your partners for
group work). Any text, images, or ideas taken from another source must be properly cited
using the parenthetical citation method in your papers and presentations. Please check
http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty/index.htm (See Appendix A) for information
about how to cite the sources you consult. It is your responsibility to learn how to cite sources
correctly. If you have any questions, please ask the tutor. All cases of plagiarism and cheating
will be dealt with by the University.