The governance of urban infrastructures facing the local impact of logistic
revolution
The urban governance of fresh food wholesale markets:
the cases of Milan (Sogemi) and Paris (Semmaris) Alessandro Maggioni, PhD Student
AAG - Unpacking Global Value Chains 1: Ports, Logistics, Labour and Chain Drivers
The research background
• In the last decades urban governments have experienced deep change processes:
•
reconfiguration of the nation states: more competences at regional and urban levels for policy design and implementation
•
increased built environment density and economic
interconnectedness between different administrative units
•
regulation of the economic change is not anymore only at the national level but it has gradually involved also local and supranational ones
•
What is the capacity of collective action within urban
governance modes in governing the local impacts of
globalization processes?
The link between urban areas and logistic development
•
There are some reasons why it is reasonable to think that these contexts play an important role in the organization of global
logistics:
• logistics activities are usually located in and around large ports and airports, as well as distribution centers, located in metropolitan areas and close to major arteries for freight (Hesse, Rogrigue, 2006).
• The accessibility of the region is a factor that increase the competitiveness of the urban unit (Savitch, Kantor, 2002)
• Metropolitan areas need to face new challenges (Lorrain, 2000): a) manage an institutionally fragmented territory; b) markets and companies are not firmly rooted at the local level; c) the same idea of being able to act effectively and strategically is questioned.
Why study wholesale markets as an urban infrastructures?
• Infrastructures are critical in the construction of the city as a place of production, consumption and expansion of capitalism (McFarlane, 2008)
• Infrastructures are never politically and socially "neutral”:
•
they crystallize representations of socio-economic development
•
and the social and economic interests connected to it;
•
they mobilize significant financial, institutional and organizational resources.
• During the 90s changes in the supply chain of perishable food
and in the business structure of retailing have began to have
an impact on the operation of these urban infrastructure
What theoretical approaches?
Neo-institutionalism: an infrastructure is an area of regulation of the economy in which standards and practices, and their change over time, are intended to make it working ensuring some special interest in it (Fligstein, 2001).
The interaction between institutional change, the actions of the various market players in the distribution of food, the regulation of the infrastructures and market changes triggered by the logistics revolution are the variables to be considered to explain the socio-political dynamics that occur at the local level.
Path dependence perspective: considering analytically the processes, the sequences and the timing of factors that are related to the infrastructure development allows us to identify moments of crisis, tension, development, reform of management arrangements, which have strengthened the pursuit of a collective action strategy to the detriment of others.
Considering both approaches in an integrated way can gives important insights to explain the outcome of the infrastructural policies
Main factors considered
. Institutional configuration
. Regulation of the infrastructure by the public companies (Sogemi and Semmaris)
. Infrastructural policies . Retail structure
. Supply chain structure
Perishable food sectorCase selection
• Two infrastructures: the Marché d’Interet National de Rungis (Semmaris) and the Mercati Generali Milanesi (Sogemi), with some common traits :
- time of existence (from 1960s until now);
- urban relevance (high);
- public ownership of the land and the physical infrastructure (present);
- role within the supply chain of each national context (most important of the country);
- presence of both individual and collective actors
• They have a different institutional position But different outcome in terms of regulation:
MIN Rungis:
is technologically advanced; it is an hub for the national agrifood supply chain; it is a national hub for the export .
Mercati Generali Milanesi:
it is not economically efficient; it is narrowing its importance in the national agrifood supply chain; the export rate its slowly falling
SOGEMI SEMMARIS
SOGEMI: Processes at work in time
Delocalizati on
Corporatisation
Investments
Changes in retail structure
Changes supply chain structure
Ongoin g Start
• Mid 1990s
1980
1992 2000 2006
SEMMARIS: Processes at work in time
Delocalizati on
Corporatisation
Investments
Changes in retail structure
Changes supply chain structure
Ongoin g Start
• First 1990s Start
• 1993
End
• 2011
2007
1999
SOGEMI
•
the local embeddedness at the veto player structure prevented the urban government to pursue the political integration of the various collective actors
SEMMARIS
•
the institutional distance from the public company allowed for bigger room for the organizational practices.
•
The selection of the management became critical
for assuring the
infrastructural intervention needed.
Conclusion 1: The institutional arrangement and
the institutional position
SOGEMI
•
dramatic fragmentation of the local political system: major structural problems, process of
marginalization is undergoing.
•
The veto player structure prevent all the infrastructural policies
proposed during time
SEMMARIS
•
The nomination of a new
management with less structural constraints and
•
