Industrial inheritances: Makers, relatedness and materiality in New York and Chicago

ABSTRACT

As policy-makers and advocates seek to harness the ‘Maker movement’ for regional innovation and economic development, attention is turning to the role of regional ‘entrepreneurial ecosystems’ in supporting Makers’ growth potential. Through interviews with 92 Maker enterprises across three industry subsectors in two regions, the paper demonstrates how the materiality of manufacturing processes, products and end markets influences Makers’ growth trajectories, and their effects on the role of regional agglomeration economies. This adds an important material dimension to ongoing academic discussions of industry relatedness focused principally on knowledge transfer, and further suggests that targeted industrial retention may complement manufacturing entrepreneurship policies.

KEYWORDS:

• evolutionary economic geography
• economic development
• industry relatedness
• related variety
• materiality
• Makers

JEL:

• M13
• O18
• O33
• R11

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors thank the many Makers and organizations that contributed valuable time and thought to the interviews, as well as the editor and referees whose feedback greatly improved the paper. The authors are also grateful to the Pratt Center for Community Development and Annie Levers for crucial assistance.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. An international self-reported directory on Makerspace.com (2017) lists more than 400 in the United States operated by a range of non-profit, for-profit and local government entities.

2. Gadgets prominently feature in Maker Faire advertisements and on the covers of Make: magazine. According to one content analysis, hardware and related technologies (such as robotics) appeared on more than 75% of Make: magazine covers (Buechley, 2014).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation [grant number 20140778].