Import replacement refers to an urban free market economic process of entrepreneurs replacing the imports of the city with production from within the city.
The idea was invented by
Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs (''née'' Butzner; 4 May 1916 – 25 April 2006) was an American-Canadian journalist, author, theorist, and activist who influenced urban studies, sociology, and economics. Her book ''The Death and Life of Great American Cities'' ...
who spun off from the idea of
import substitution developed by
Andre Gunder Frank
Andre Gunder Frank (February 24, 1929 – April 25, 2005) was a German-American sociologist and economic historian who promoted dependency theory after 1970 and world-systems theory after 1984. He employed some Marxian concepts on politi ...
and widely discussed during the first and second
Latin American debt crisis
The Latin American debt crisis ( es, Crisis de la deuda latinoamericana; pt, Crise da dívida latino-americana) was a financial crisis that originated in the early 1980s (and for some countries starting in the 1970s), often known as ''La Déca ...
. Import substitution is a national economic theory implying that if a nation substituted its imports with national production the nation would become wealthier, whereas Jacob's idea is entirely about cities and could be called ''urban import substitution''. However, even this would lead to confusion since, in practice, import substitution in India and Latin America were government subsidized and mandated, whereas Jacobs' concept of import replacement is a free market process of discovery and
division of labor
The division of labour is the separation of the tasks in any economic system or organisation so that participants may specialise (specialisation). Individuals, organizations, and nations are endowed with, or acquire specialised capabilities, and ...
within a city.
References
Development economics
Import
Industrial policy
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