Industry in Motion: Using Smart Phones to Explore the Spatial Network of the Garment Industry in New York City
Name
Williams-2014-Industry in Motion_.pdf
Size
1.31 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
5a3b017d97dc932443208d457e028716
Author(s)
Williams, Sarah E.
Currid-Halkett, Elizabeth
Date Issued
February 2014
Journal
PLoS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science
Citation
Williams, Sarah, and Elizabeth Currid-Halkett. “Industry in Motion: Using Smart Phones to Explore the Spatial Network of the Garment Industry in New York City.” Edited by José Javier Ramasco. PLoS ONE 9, no. 2 (February 5, 2014): e86165.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Industrial agglomerations have long been thought to offer economic and social benefits to firms and people that are only captured by location within their specified geographies. Using the case study of New York City’s garment industry along with data acquired from cell phones and social media, this study set out to understand the discrete activities underpinning the economic dynamics of an industrial agglomeration. Over a two week period, data was collected by employing the geo-locative capabilities of Foursquare, a social media application, to record every movement of fashion workers employed at fashion design firms located both inside and outside the geographical boundaries of New York City’s Garment District. This unique method of studying worker activity exposed the day-to-day dynamics of an industrial district with a precision thus far undocumented in literature. Our work suggests that having access to the cluster provides almost the same agglomeration economies as residing within its borders.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0086165
