The Niche City Idea: How a Declining Manufacturing Center Exploited the Opportunities of Globalization

John Joe Schlichtman

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2009, vol. 33, issue 1, pages 105-125

Abstract: This article examines a small city that forged a global service industry niche. Its leaders aligned the temporality of its historic downtown with that of the international furniture industry to make it the world's primary furniture merchandising node. This article overviews the radical transformation of the downtown, describes the 'choreography' of the area, and considers what the author feels are the important wider implications of what is, on the surface, a deceptively odd case. The author suggests that, in engaging this specific strategy, this very unique city portends a more general type of post-industrial "Niche City", a city that forges global centrality by creating an economic specialization in a specific segment of the global service economy. Copyright (c) 2009 The Author. Journal Compilation(c) 2009 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Date: 2009

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