John N.H. Britton

Professor

• Ph.D. Economic Geography, University of London (LSE), 1966
• M.A. Geography, University of Melbourne, 1963
• B.A. Geography, University of Sydney, 1960
  

Department of Geography and Program in Planning
University of Toronto
Room 5059, Sidney Smith Hall
100 St. George Street
Toronto, ON  M5S 3G3
phone:  416-978-1595
fax:  416-946-3886
email:  britton@geog.utoronto.ca

Research Interests:

Canadian industrial development and technological strategy
Foreign ownership and its impacts.
Innovation policy for small and medium sized enterprises
Canadian impacts of trade liberalization
Industrial networks and innovation in the Toronto region
Clustering and the behaviour of Multimedia in Toronto

Recent Publications:

(forthcoming) “ High Technology Localization and Extra-Regional Networks,” Entrepreneurship and Regional Development

“Clustered beginnings: anatomy of multimedia in Toronto,” in David A. Wolfe and Matthew Lucas, eds, Clusters in a Cold Climate , McGill–Queen's Press with School of Policy Studies, 2004 (with G. Legare).

“Network structure of an industrial cluster: electronics in Toronto ,” Environment and Planning A, 2003 , 35, 983-1006.  

“Regional Implications of North American Integration: A Canadian Perspective on High Technology Manufacturing,” Regional Studies, 2002, 36, 359-374.

“Free Trade and the High-technology Response: A Regional Innovation System Perspective on Toronto ” in A. Holbrook and D. Wolfe (eds) Knowledge, Clusters and Regional Innovation: Economic Development in Canada ( Kingston : Queen's-McGill Press with School of Policy Studies ), 2002

With Norcliffe, Barnes and others:”Canadian Economic Geography at the Millenium”, The Canadian Geographer , 2000, 44, 4 –24

"Does Nationality Still Matter? The New Competition and the Foreign Ownership Question Revisited," in Trevor Barnes and Meric Gertler (eds), Regions, Regulations and Institutions , Routledge, 2000

“Is the Impact of the North American Trade Agreements Zero? The Canadian Case,” Canadian Journal of Regional Science , 21, 1998, 167-196

Canada and the Global Economy: The Geography of Structural and Technological Change . McGill Queen's University Press, 1996 (editor).

“Specialization versus Diversity in Canadian Technological Development," Small Business Economics , 8, 1996, 121-138

" Canada under Free Trade: Defining the Metropolitan Agenda for Innovation Policy", International Journal of Urban and Regional Research , 17, 1993, 559-577

Work in progress:

Clustering and the digital economy: Multimedia in Toronto

Courses:

Undergraduate: GGR 220Y - Regional Economic Models - joint

GGR 326F - Industrial Location

GGR 391S - Research Design in Geography

GGR 491Y - Research Project

Graduate: GGR 1602F- Industry: Location, Behaviour, Policy

Doctoral students currently being supervised:

Keiran Donoghue - Industrial networks and the process of innovation

Gerry Legare - The Political Economy of the Construction of Culture – a case study of the electronic image producing complex in Toronto