Md Anwar Hossain
Doctor of Philosophy candidate
Urban Planning
Biography
Anwar Hossain is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. He is awarded the prestigious Melbourne Research Scholarship for his PhD study. His research interests lie in evolutionary economic geography, urban planning, and spatial analysis. He obtained his bachelor's and master’s degree in Geography and Environment from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Later, he obtained another master’s degree in spatial planning jointly from Radboud University, Netherlands and Cardiff University, United Kingdom with the Erasmus Mundus Scholarship. He has been teaching at the University of Dhaka since 2012 and is currently on leave for his PhD study. He has published several research articles and book chapters.
Thesis
The interaction of firms' location choices and territorial policies in industry cluster evolution: The case of the garment industry in Dhaka, Bangladesh
The concept of ‘industry cluster’ has become an important tool in regional economic development and innovation strategies. In a simple definition, an industry cluster is a geographical concentration of similar industries that benefit from shared infrastructure, easily accessible skilled labour pool and knowledge and technology sharing because of their co-location. Traditionally, industry cluster studies followed time-static approaches. However, in the last three decades, a significant number of studies have focused on the long-term dynamics of an industry cluster. This is popularly known as the evolutionary approach. The evolutionary approach has provided some interesting findings, such as, how does an industry cluster emerge? How do its characteristics change over time? Why do some industry clusters decline? How do network and institutional structures change within a cluster?
To date, the evolutionary approach primarily focuses on the qualitative characteristics of a cluster, such as knowledge types and sources, innovation types, network stability and productivity etc. However, geographical and policy dimensions are still poorly addressed in industry cluster evolution theories. The cluster evolution theories do not explicitly explain – how the geographical extent and spatial arrangement of firms change within a cluster. Moreover, the theories do not answer yet - how do place-based issues, especially territorial policies affect the geography of a cluster? Too little consideration of geography and too little analysis of the effects of policies limit the incorporation of cluster dynamics in spatial planning processes and practices. Under such a context, this study aims to understand the geographical evolution of an industry cluster focusing on firms’ location choice behaviours and territorial policies.
The garment industry cluster of Dhaka, Bangladesh will be studied as the case. The novelty of the study is that it will compile a unique spatio-temporal dataset that will be capable of identifying the changing geography of the cluster, the intra-cluster movement patterns of firms and the pattern of spatial restructuring within the cluster’s spatial boundary. Then, these patterns will be explained by qualitative data collected from the field by interviewing the factory owners, industry associations and policy-facing institutions. Successful completion of the study will contribute to the existing knowledge domain both theoretically and empirically. Moreover, it will demonstrate the importance of studying the dynamics of cluster geography for planning practitioners to offer more inclusive cluster-specific spatial strategies.