Using Sassen’s theory to explain the phenomenon of cluster

According to Sassen (1991, 1994), the theory of “global city” means that the new role of the city in the global economy and defines a city in terms of the strategy function and the connection in the world network. Sassen also mentions about the reason of the phenomenon of increasing clusters in this connected digital world. The answer is specialized function. For example, over 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies have their headquarters in New York City. A lot of these firms are not in New York and over 60 percent of their revenue in overseas sales. This is not only in terms of the design-oriented manufacturing, but also in terms of highly specialized services, such as financial, accounting, design and management consulting and so on.

Base on this theory to examine the fieldwork in Cicheng, we also can see the same situation. The local government uses the history of 1000 years and ancient architectures in this old town and also inivite specialized consultant to provide the local companies the new opportunity to created new business. They tried to integrate the local heritage and the resources of traditional industries to build up a theme economy of DIY and new brand image for both of them. A new theme cluster is constructing.

 

Fu Hanqing’s Essay Question (The final one)

By reading the materials and researching on the migrant workers in  Ningbo, I found that I was interested in the study of mingrant workers. So, I changed my topic.

This essay will discuss the features of migrant workers in the era of Post-Fordism and consider that as the subject of Post-Fordism, how the migrant workers relates to the development of creative industries in Ningbo.

Useful Resource: Ningbo Creative Industry Association

Official Website

Address:No.106 West Chenghe Road, Zhenhai District 　Ningbo
Post Code:    315200
Liaison:Zhu Li
Tel:  0574- 86259185
Fax:  0574-86259186

Some Surveys from Ningbo Creative Cluster

According to Consumption Daily (2008), the Ningbo government has planned to construct at least 8 creative industry parks around the Ningbo city, almost each district will have at least one creative industry park. It is important to point out that the Ningbo city has six districts including Yinzhou District,Haishu District,Jiangdong District,Jiangbei District,Beilun District and Zhenhai District. At present, most of creative industry park were completed.

Yinzhou District will have the 128 Creative Park. Nowadays the first stage construction of 128 Creative Park had been finished and 27 enterprises were moved into this Creative Park. Accoding to Wang(2009),he is the deputy district mayor in Yinzhou District. He indicated that the 128 Creative Park will be a base for creative industry, industrial design and technology incubator.

Haishu District has the Loft 8 in which our group has already been there. Here is the Official website for Loft 8. According to Lou(2008), he is the assistant manager for Loft 8 Project. He said that Ningbo is lack of general idea of creative industry. Therefore they decide to form an investigation group and go to the Beijing and Shanghai city to learn knowledge about creative industry. He also emphasised that 798 in Beijing was their reference sample and gave them lots of experiences. There are more than 14 enterprises in the Loft 8, they refer to industry design, creative planning and fairs and exhibitions area.

Jiangdong District has the most creative industry park in Ningbo. For example, Jiangdong District has the earliest Ningbo creative industry park 228 Creative Industry Park. It used to the Tianyi Toy Factory. Some staff in this 228 Creative Industry Park mentioned that the most important thing they would like to be here is the atmosphere. Persons of the same profession can talk with each other freely. And anther place is The Third Factory Fashion Block. This is also the first creative industry loft project in Ningbo. The last creative park in this district is Ningbo Industry Design and Creative Block. It is a major project in Ningbo urban planning.

The sinking down plaza in Ningbo Industry Design and Creative Block

Jiangbei District rely to the old bund, it had established 1847 Bund for their creative industry project. According to the news from government information website in April of 2009, one of the firms in the 1847 Bund is named Gaode Design Studio and the sales volume of this studio from January to October in 2008 even still increased 20% during the economic crisis. The second creative park in this district is 134 Creative Valley, which we had been on last week by haphazard.

134 Creative Valley

This valley already attracted 47 firms. From some reference I found that this place had achieved output value nearly RMB 20 million in 2008,and the rate for efficiently use the idle assets reach to 90%.In addition, recently the most famous one in this district is The Wealth and Creative Harbour. It is the place integrates the culture from water, the culture from creative industry and the leisure culture. This place even plans a exhibition to introduce the creative industry in Ningbo.

Wealth and Creative Harbour

For Beilun District, it has a famous Beilun Port. Accoding to Ningbo News, Beilun District have a Hailun Piano Factory, as a result, government of Beilun District decided to develop piano cluster in this district.

Software industry is the centre industry in Zhenhai District, and the district has Innovation Valley .Zhenhai District depends on college resource to develop their unique creative industry. As we know, the science Park of Ningbo University is located in Zhenhai District. According to Ningbo government’s work report, the first-stage construction of Innovation Valley includes three sectors. They are Science Tour, East China Software Outsourcing Service Base and Innovation Valley Research and Development Building. The Second Phase Project consists of Software Department in Peking University Ningbo Branch Northern Europe Industry Park etc. Until now, some international enterprises have entered into this park, such as Det Norske Veritas and IQSS etc. Accoding to government analyse report from Zhenhai District government website, it is illustrate that the cluster effect were revealed obviously in 2008.Innovation Valley had achieved output value about RMB 14.17 billion because of the cluster management.

Innovation Planning of Innovation Valley(click to the picture)

Che(2008), who is the President of Ningbo Creative Industry Association, pointed out that People in Ningbo need to utilize for the well-developed private economy and private enterprises. On the one hand, Private enterprises are big market customers for the creative industry, and on the other hand, they also can be the main body of the creative industry.

Lou(2008), who is the staff from Jiangdong District State Statistics Bureau, explained two development models in Ningbo creative industry. The first model is that the enterprises invest creative industry themselves. The other one is that although some enterprises are not related to the creative industry, they explored this field during the business process, such as Oulin Kitchen Company. They corporate with China Academy of Art for designing a music kichen, it is import music element in this design and attracted lots of consumers in 2006 Housing Exibition.

The catchword frequently used for describing Ningbo creative industry is that, “let the made in Ningbo into create in Ningbo.

One more thing about how to develop the Ningbo creative industry, Lin(2008),he is the director of Brand Operation in Ningbo Beyong Company. This company is a pioneer for textile industry in China. He stated that, Ningbo as a second tier city, it must be find out a appropriate approach or direction to develop their creative industry, and it will be more practical. For Ningbo, such as electron, clothing, stationery, and light industrial product etc are the characteristic industry; therefore, creative industry will tend to industry design, fashion design and advertising industry. Because the characteristic industry and creative industry mentioned above could perfectly merged.

References

Ningbo Economy edits 2008, ‘Creative industry:Ningbo start-  up’,Journal of Ningbo Economy,2008,no.2,pp 17-19.

The Official Website of Ningbo Economy Committee 2009. Retrieved April 10,2009 from http://www.nbec.gov.cn/en/mec.htm

Chen,Kuohai 2007, ‘The research proposal of Ningbo industry design and creative block.’,Journal of Association for Science Forum,2007,no,4,pp42-44.

Wang,Jici 2004, ‘The suggestion of the research on local indwtrial cluster’,Journal of Economic Survey,2004,no.2,pp 53-57.

Some Notes from Government Report of Renewable Resource Recycling Planning in Ningbo Cixi

From 1949 to 1991, renewable resource in Cixi was recycled by Cixi Supply and Marketing Cooperative. After 1991, huge amount of peasants got into this field, and began to shape the new renewable resource recycling network. Until the end of 2007, there were 513 households under licence for work in the renewable resource recycling industry. The statistics from the end of the 2007 are that nearly fifty thousand people worked in this industry, and most of them are migrant workers and people without fixed duties. Basically they are lack of license. They gathered these waste products from residential area and garbage bin. It is a very primitive way to collect these renewable resources.

At present, the widespread phenomenon is that, they competition for gathering waste iron, steel, copper, scrap, waste paper. However pay less attention on glasses and the waste household appliances and computer because these waste products need more professional knowledge for them. In addition, the technical content is higher then waste metals. It seems too tough for them. As mentioned before members in this recycling field are mostly peasants and migrant works.

They use tricycle to collect waste products

For salvage station, the majorities are illegal and set up at random. They stock these waste products outdoor or set up the buildings constructed without licence. Furthermore they sorting, dismantling, and processing these at the same place. Thus it definitely became the pollutant for city.

One of the reclamation depot in Ningbo

Reference

Cixi Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives 2008，Cixi City of Renewable Resource Recycling Network System Planning. Retrieve April 8,2009,from http://gxls.cixi.gov.cn/art/2008/11/14/art_15589_236111.html

慈溪市供销合作社联合社2009，慈溪市可再生资源回收网络体系建设规划, 来源 于2009年4月8日

Notes about Creative Clusters: Out Of Nowhere

According to Michael Keane that the form of creative clusters which posted in 2006 in China need to absorb people from outside. In other words they need people who are “boundary spanning”. He suggests that planning is the core element which leads to success or not. In China the participation of government to some certain degree will help creative industry to be ordered and balanceable. For example, in Shanghai, Media Cultural Park where is rebuild from Shanghai Window Hook Factory now absorb many design studios and companies which produce film and video for advertisements. As the gate keeper said the government of Shanghai supervises this creative cluster and insures that the retired and laid-off workers of Window Hook Factory could get access to work. Because of the government’s effort this area is successfully attract investments from outside. In term of Ningbo, there are inadequate talented people and governmental supervision, especially in taxation, territory, governmental subsidy, social financing and the set up of polynary invested mechanism (Nie and Wang 2008). Moreover, Michael Keane mentions “learning region” in which knowledge can be absorbed and transformed easily often be the reason why government prefer to promote the exploration of clusters. One typical phenomenon is that in China many cities, no matter rich or poor, tend to develop creative clusters, however, this method is not fit for all the cities in China. As Michael Keane critics that the establishment of creative clusters need the investment of profound professional knowledge in exploring, detecting and exploiting jus like Silicon Valley. In Ningbo creative clusters are developing at a primary stage. In Loft 8 there are many design studios. The studio No Space is always be the place that holds exhibitions like art and photographic exhibition. Nevertheless, the popularity is low because the lack of propaganda. In addition, the scarce of planning also lead to low attention on creative cluster in Ningbo. In other words, the creative clusters need to be expand and complete in angles of globality, function and forward looking (Nie and Wang 2008).

References:

Keane, Michael (2008) ‘Creative Clusters: Out of Nowhere?’, Urban China 33: 34-35.

Nie, J L & Wang Q Y (2008) The Survey on Current Situation of Creative Industry and Development Stratagem in Ningbo. Market Modernization. Vol.561, p.213-215.

Interviews to Recycling Business in Ningbo

This video is the interview we did last week.

Open this video

The Trip of E-waste recycling

Amazing Trip

the trip of e-waste recycling 10/04/2009 

Clip: Shanghai Creative Industry Park

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Investigate for Shanghai Creative Industry Park

• Tianzi  Fang

• The 8 Bridge

• Media Culture Park

• Duolun Road