Micro: A strategy for individual economic organizations combining vertical integration, assembly lines, and comparatively high wages to ensure stability and capture scale economies in order to produce large quantities of goods at low cost.
Macro: A form of economic organization including production, income distribution, consumption, and public goods and services based on the mutual reinforcement of mass production and mass consumption.
Three Pillars of Postwar Fordism
• Expansion of Mass Higher Education
o Between 1940 and 2000, college graduates as a percent of the adult population increased by almost 600%.
o Given that the adult population itself more than doubled during this time, this amounts to more than a 1400% increase in the higher education industry.
o Between 1940 and 1970, the increase over 300%
o This expansion of higher education created tremendous demand and acted as a stimulus to the economy
• Military Economy
o Public spending on military also created final demand and stimulated the economy
o Aeronautic nature of much military hardware favored plants located in the Sunbelt.
o Politics of military appropriations also favored Sunbelt.
• Suburbanization
o Created tremendous demand
Some cities become service centers
• Corporations require large management structure for control – "technostructure"
• Engels’ Law – affluence produces more service consumption
• Governments become major service providers
• Best sites for service provision and consumption are large cities
Urban patterns
• Importance of world cities – NYC preeminent in US but also Chicago and LA
• Contraction of manufacturing belt cities
• Rise of high-tech cities and those conducive to the "creative class"
• Sunbelt cities as centers of high-tech, professional services and retirement
• Hierarchy of cities in global economy
• Some cities left out or only with marginal connection
• Cities divided between "haves" and "have nots"
Immigration
As globalization penetrates less developed countries, it
• Introduces competition from foreign agricultural goods
• Drives rural people off land to cities
• Creates a segment of better paid (by domestic standards but still low paid compared to developed countries) workers
• Creates high demand (due to large numbers and some middle class), driving up prices
• Increased pressure for immigration to developed countries
o Remittances
