ABSTRACT
Many accounts of contemporary manufacturing deal with issues of productivity, efficiency, and technological advances, but fail to take into account the situation of the production worker him- or herself, as a working human being. This chapter deals with the human side of production—of worker satisfaction, of issues of social inclusion, and how the spatial order of the city and its buildings provides the physical framework for these human connections.
The commodification of production workers is characterized by a bifurcation of the workforce, leaving many people with low-wage and low-skilled jobs, and little chance of advancement. Economic inclusion in cities may be fostered both by an economy in which production plays an important role as well as by a physical fabric of urban form and buildings that supports economic interaction and mixtures of economic activities. Such a physical fabric does not set up artificial barriers between people (and firms) who are in different economic situations.
