Lesson plan

Import replacement

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 who spun off from the idea of import substitution developed by Andre Gunder Frank and widely discussed during the first and second Latin American debt crisis. 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 was government subsidized and mandated, whereas Jacobs' concept of import replacement is a free market process of discovery and division of labor within a city.

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Article summary

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 who spun off from the idea of import substitution developed by Andre Gunder Frank and widely discussed during the first and second Latin American debt crisis. 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 was government subsidized and mandated, whereas Jacobs' concept of import replacement is a free market process of discovery and division of labor within a city.

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  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  3. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

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