How cities are created based on How New Work Begins by Jane Jacobson 1969

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How cities are created based on How New Work
Begins by Jane Jacobson (1969)

• Highlights by Laura Lamb

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• Throughout history economies have expanded by
  adding new kinds of work.
• Doing more of the same work does not lead to
  larger economies.

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• The process of expanding economies, through the
  division of labour,
• is in essence about how cities are formed.

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• Cities contain more kinds of work than villages,
  towns, farms, etcthus there is more potential to
  add new work and subsequently expand.

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• How does the process start?
• What keeps the process going?

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• Cities contain more divisions of labour than
  other types of settlements.
• Why?

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• One kind of work leads to another.
• For instance a dressmaking business led to the
  invention of brassieres in New York city in the
  1920s.

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• Sometimes the new product occurs by accident
• For instance, 3M invented new adhesives while
  developing sandpaper.

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• The concept of one process leading to a new one
  is not confined to profit-making enterprises
• For instance, a hospital outpatient department
  developed a home-care service.

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• The concept it also not confined to useful,
  legal or innocuous work
• For instance, appliance repair shops earn
  kickbacks from appliance retailers, beer
  distributors start protection rackets.

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• The point is that new goods and service stem
  from existing work.

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• The new work is added onto a fragment of older
  work.
• For instance, a specific division of labour of
  the whole work of dressmaking led to the notion
  of adding brassieres.

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• When new work is added to existing work, more
  tasks are required.

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• Formula
• D A ? nD
• D div of labour
• A added new activity
• nD indeterminate number of new divisions of
  labour

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• Typically when new goods services are added,
  new divisions of labour are added more quickly
  than old divisions become obsolete.

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• The greater the number of activities in an
  economy, the greater the capacity for adding more
  kinds of g s.

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The process in unpredictable.

• After the new activity is established, it often
  appears a logical and natural extension of old
  work.

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Two main sources of ideas for new goods and
services

• Ideas from materials or skills already being used
• Ideas arising from problems with an aspect of
  production
• Sometimes the two sources overlap.

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• New goods and services may be suitable for the
  consumers of the existing product, but not
  necessarily.
• Sometimes the new product is appropriate for a
  completely different market.

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• In addition to innovation is imitation.

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• Imitation is a shortcut.
• For example, the Japanese began to produce
  previously imported bicycles.

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• The gain to the Japanese economy was more than a
  bicycle industry they gained a pattern for many
  other industrial successes.
• A system of breaking down complex manufacturing
  work into relatively simple fragments.

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• Parts making has become a standard way to add
  new work.
• For instance, Sony began as a small- parts shop
  in Tokyo.

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• Another form of imitation is where a retailer
  starts out selling a product, then later makes it
  and sells it.

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• Breakaway describes the process by which more
  shortcuts are employed by subsequent imitators.
• A breakaway can be a direct imitation but often
  it incorporates a variation from the older work.

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• For instance, in the magazine publishing
  industry, employees sometimes breakaway and start
  a new magazine.

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• Old products, previously thought to be obsolete,
  are often put to new uses.
• For instance, kimonos practically disappeared in
  Japan when Western dress gained popularity, but
  then later became popular again as high-fashion
  formal dress by modern young women.

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• Often the new goods are intermediate goods
  purchased by other manufacturers.
• For instance, the purchasers of 3MS abrasive
  sand were producers of metal casting.

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• There are two relationships between the producer
  of a new intermediate good and the purchaser of
  the good

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• 1. Suppliers can be independent of their
  customers
• 2. The supplier of the new product can become a
  department of one of their large customers

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• It is often assumed that large firms with many
  divisions of labour are better at adding new work
  than smaller firms.

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• This is not the case.
• Large firms tend to be infertile.

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• Large firms often buy new activities rather than
  create their own.
• By doing so, a research and development
  department is createdand division of labour
  occurs.

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• A large number of diverse economic firms are
  needed to create new work.
• Not a few large firms.

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• Seen as a source or new work, division of
  labour becomes something infinitely more useful
  than Adam Smith suggested when he limited its
  function to the efficient rationalization of
  work.