Article
Planning, social infrastructure, and the maker movement: The view from New York City
Carolina Planning Journal
(2016)
Abstract
In recent years, the maker movement has captured the imaginations of policy makers and planners across the United States. This paper, derived from a research project encompassing maker firms and their “ecosystems” in three U.S. cities, explores the trajectory and possibilities of the maker movement from a planning perspective, using case studies of four New York City institutions: a public sector agency spearheading an initiative to assist startup businesses in the emerging hardware sector; a community-based organization helping specialty food entrepreneurs grow and add jobs; a neighborhood-based makerspace that offers education and business development in a low-income community; and a private firm aiming to reinvent the synergies of Manhattan’s Garment District in an outer borough. Each of these intermediaries exemplifies a unique set of convictions about the social and economic value of the maker movement and about the role of planning in supporting it.
Keywords
- maker movement,
- makerspace,
- entrepreneurship ecosystem
Disciplines
Publication Date
2016
Citation Information
Laura Wolf-Powers and Annie Levers. "Planning, social infrastructure, and the maker movement: The view from New York City" Carolina Planning Journal Vol. 41 (2016) p. 38 - 52 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/laura_wolf_powers/39/