Invention and Reinvention: The Evolution of San Diego?s Innovation Economy

Formerly prosperous cities across the United States, struggling to keep up with an increasingly global economy and the continued decline of post-war industries like manufacturing, face the issue of how to adapt to today's knowledge economy. In Invention and Reinvention, authors Mary Walshok and Abraham Shragge chronicle San Diego's transformation from a small West Coast settlement to a booming military metropolis and then to a successful innovation hub. This instructive story of a second-tier city that transformed its core economic identity can serve as a rich case and a model for similar regions.

Stressing the role that cultural values and social dynamics played in its transition, the authors discern five distinct, recurring factors upon which San Diego capitalized at key junctures in its economic growth. San Diego―though not always a star city―has been able to repurpose its assets and realign its economic development strategies continuously in order to sustain prosperity. Chronicling over a century of adaptation, this book offers a lively and penetrating tale of how one city reinvented itself to meet the demands of today's economy, lighting the way for others.

Mary Lindenstein Walshok is Associate Vice Chancellor of Public Programs, Dean of University Extension, and Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego. She is the author of Blue Collar Women, Knowledge Without Boundaries, Closing America's Job Gap, and co-editor of Creating Competitiveness. She is also a co-founder of CONNECT, a renowned innovation cluster development organization. Abraham J. Shragge received his Ph.D. in Modern United States History from the University of California, San Diego. He is a curator of the Veterans Museum and Memorial Center in Balboa Park and Coordinator of the San Diego Ex-Prisoners of War Oral History Project. Shragge is currently a Visiting Professor at the Korea Development Institute School of Public Policy and Management.