Cooperation, Proximity, and Social Innovation: Three Ingredients for Industrial Medium-Sized Towns’ Renewal?

Marjolaine Gros-Balthazard,Magali Talandier

doi:10.3390/urbansci4020015

Abstract

Over several decades, medium-sized industrial towns have suffered from a combination of economic and political processes: Deindustrialization, metropolization, and withdrawal of public services. After two decades in which they have been somewhat neglected (in favor of metropolises), there have recently been State and European public policies aimed at them. Medium-sized cities are not homogeneous and present several trajectories. Based on quantitative approach in France, we highlight the very diverse socio-economic dynamics of French medium-sized industrial towns. Thus, far from widespread decline or shrinking dynamics, some of these cities are experiencing an economic rebound. This is the case of Romans-sur-Isère, a medium-sized town located in the south-east of France. Focusing our qualitative analyze on this city, we try to understand this type of process. In this medium-sized town, former capital of the shoe industry, local stakeholders, private, and public try to support a productive renewal. The results of our case study highlight the role that cooperation, spatial and organizational proximity, and social innovation could play in the renewal of productive economy in medium-sized industrial towns. Even if the economic situation remains difficult for many medium-sized cities in France as in Europe, we argue that they could have a productive future making and ultimately take advantages of their “medium-sized” attributes.

Highlights

The Yellow Vest movement in France, the Brexit in United Kingdom, and the election of DonaldTrump in USA opened the debate on the geographical divide between metropolises and peripheries, rural areas, or small and medium towns
Our results show the importance of three drivers of productive renewal: Cooperation, spatial proximity, and social innovation
We present all of our results, from the diversity of medium-sized industrial towns trajectories, which relativizes their socio-economic difficulties, to the redevelopment trajectory of Romans, through which we see cooperation and social innovation as two levers that can foster the productive future of medium-sized industrial towns

Summary

Introduction

The Yellow Vest movement in France, the Brexit in United Kingdom, and the election of DonaldTrump in USA opened the debate on the geographical divide between metropolises and peripheries, rural areas, or small and medium towns. In industrialized countries, the combination of metropolitan positive economic dynamics and the evolution of regional planning policies raise the question of the non-metropolitan areas’ future and, among them, that of medium-sized towns. Despite its interest, this question has rarely been addressed, concerning economic and productive future [5,6,7]. A large part of these towns has suffered from a combination of economic and political processes: Deindustrialization, metropolization, and withdrawal of public services In this context, when they are studied, it is often in terms of planning with shrinkage, commercial, or public services decline [9,10,11,12,13,14]. While they have historically been administrative and industrial centers and despite their importance for national urban systems, it is

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