In the wake of the global financial crisis, cities have searched for new policies and practices capable of addressing major shifts in socio-economic relations at the urban and regional scale. These divergent and differentiated efforts have led to the intensification of underlying problems in some cities and a return to growth in others.

Regional policies, particularly in the North American context, responded to economic challenges by adopting new technologies and new institutional and organizational forms to manage growth and change at the city scale. The result is a complex and uneven landscape of public and private actors delivering financial services, scaling-up supply chains, coordinating firm networks, diffusing process and material innovations, and organizing new forms of civic representation and participation.

 This conference provides a platform for researchers to address the effects of these policy, organizational, and institutional innovations and their impact on work, identity, governance, production networks, infrastructure investments, technology diffusion, and ultimately place. The conference will focus on the policy implications of emerging forms of governance and policy delivery relative to uneven development and inequality in a post-crisis era of ongoing market liberalization, financialization, and global competition.

The inter-related processes of industrialization, urbanization, and regional and local development are complex. These processes pose a major challenge for regional policy, firstly for our conceptualizations of regional and urban development and, secondly, for specifying appropriate policy-fixes to provide the conditions for sustainable, smart, and equitable economic growth.

The 2016 RSA North America Conference, in the 51st Year of the Regional Studies Association, is an opportunity to discuss these issues, to chart future research imperatives, and to address concerns and challenges confronting policymakers and practitioners. The conference organizers are keen to attract papers and sessions addressing a broad research and policy agenda, including contributions from disciplines that offer relevant insights associated with recasting our cities and regions.

Plenary Speakers

Professor Susan Christopherson, Cornell University, USA 

Professor Matthew Zook, University of Kentucky

Dr. Dieter Kogler, University College Dublin, Ireland 

Professor Robin Leichenko, Rutgers School of Arts & Sciences, USA

Professor Karen Chapple, University of California, Berkeley, USA 

Professor David Rigby, UCLA, USA

The organisers welcome proposals for special sessions, themed workshops and innovative forms of networking and collaboration. 

If you would like to organize or offer a session to the conference please contact Professor Jennifer Clark at: jennifer.clark@gatech.edu

 Abstract submission deadline: Thursday, April 21, 2016

Conference Web site and Registration:
http://www.regionalstudies.org/conferences/conference/rsa-north-american-conf