Divergence of economic opportunity in average places: Pathways to growth

2026/06/18 by Howard Hao Wang, Harald Bathelt, Maximilian Buchholz · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Qualitative Comparative Analysis Research #Urban Planning and Governance #Urbanization and City Planning

paper · doi:10.1177/03091325261457456

openalex publication_date 2026/06/18 · openalex created_date 2026/06/19 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/19

Abstract

Research on urban-regional development tends to focus on city-regions with extreme economic outcomes (e.g., superstar cities, ‘left-behind’ places), with less attention paid to more normal, ‘average’ places. In this paper, we use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to investigate conditions supporting significant growth in small and mid-sized U.S. urban regions that had average income levels in 1993 (our average places). We identify the interplay between physical geography (e.g., energy reserves and natural amenities), contextual conditions, and economic specialization as instrumental to many of these places’ development, raising important questions about future development prospects of these average places.

Citations

• The Ordinary City
• Peripheralization: Theoretical Concepts Explaining Socio-Spatial Inequalities
• Building Better Causal Theories: A Fuzzy Set Approach to Typologies in Organization Research
• The revenge of the places that don’t matter (and what to do about it)
• “Superstar Cities” & the Generation of Durable Inequality
• Left-behind versus unequal places: interpersonal inequality, economic decline and the rise of populism in the USA and Europe
• The Changing Shape of Spatial Income Disparities in the United States

Discussions

• Economic geography ignores ordinary places for the glamour of superstar cities. In @proghumgeog.bsky.social, @howard-hw.bsky.social, Bathelt & @maxbuchholz.bsky.social show how many #cities in the #US [bsky, 0 points, 1 comments]