Mission Hills, Guangdong Province, China

Bangalore, 2006

Microsoft HQ, Redmond WA

Cities of Knowledge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Current research

My research explores the history, politics, and culture of the "knowledge economy" over the twentieth century. I'm currently at work on a monograph about the global chase for high-tech economic development since 1970. My other writing explores the evolving role of higher education institutions, relationship between technology and environmental sustainability, and policy discourse and policy action shaping new-economy opportunity and the geographies of innovation.

Selected scholarly publications

Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Next Silicon Valley (Princeton University Press, 2005). Focusing on the years 1945 to 1970, Cities of Knowledge shows the complex bundle of public and private forces that drove high-tech innovation and determined the very particular geography of high-tech regions. Many places have tried to become "the next Silicon Valley." This book shows how and why this has proved to be so difficult.

"Landscapes of Knowledge and High Technology," in Places: A Forum of Design for the Public Realm 19.1 (Spring 2007).

“Cold War Politics and Scientific Communities: The Case of Silicon Valley,” Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, May 2006.

"Uncovering the City in the Suburb," in The New Suburban History, ed. Kevin M. Kruse and Thomas J. Sugrue (Chicago, 2006).

“Suburbia Reconsidered: Race, Politics, and Property in the Twentieth-Century Metropolis,” Journal of Social History 39:1 (2005).

“Barriers to Work: the Spatial Divide between Jobs and Welfare Recipients in Metropolitan Areas.” Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1998.

For policy publications and media commentary, see the Commentary page.

For a full list of publications, please see CV.