Research Interests

[Dt. Jonathan M. Feldman]

MASS TRANSIT PRODUCTION IN THE U.S.

With support from the Seymour Melman estate administered by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., as well as the MacArthur Foundation in Chicago, I have been investigating how defense firms attempted to develop civilian products and how the domestic-based mass transit industry could be expanded in the United States. My interest is to explore possibilities for coalitions of cities to cooperate in procurement and design (if not production) of mass transit components as part of a trajectory of making vehicles, e.g. subway cars, light rail vehicles and buses. Some of my research will be summarized in an article coming out in The American Prospect, April 2009. This is in a special issue related to revival of economies tied to green or sustainable industries.

I have been analyzing the following questions: a) How are mass transportation agencies cultivating their user knowledge to make designs and design improvements in mass transit vehicles? b) What are possibilities for using procurement power and mass transit budgets for cities, states and regional authorities to leverage or support: component, final assembly or more integrated domestic content production? c) How can joint procurement be supported through cooperation among cities and is such cooperation limited by standardization problems or overcome by more flexible machining? d) What are the political and economic barriers to expansion of mass transportation usage?

I am interested in: (a) national best practice or otherwise interesting examples; (b) a potential case studies on specific cities’ efforts centering on the politics of advancing mass transit use and production, and (c) persons at mass transit production or design house wherever they may be located.

I was interviewed about my research by Louis Uchitelle of The New York Times in February of 2009. Some of my research will appear in a special issue of The American Prospect in April of 2009.

Those interested in this topic are invited to consult listen to the radio interview archived at Earthbeat Radio:

http://www.earthbeatradio.org/ (Interview aired live June 6, 2006)

and to consult the following articles:

Jonathan Feldman, “The Conversion of Defense Engineers’ Skills: Explaining Success and Failure Through Customer-Based Learning, Teaming and Managerial Integration.” Chapter 18 in The Defense Industry in the Post-Cold War Era: Corporate Strategy and Public Policy Perspectives, Gerald I. Susman and Sean O'Keefe, eds. Oxford: Elsevier Science, 1998.

Jonathan Feldman, “It’s a Two-Way Street: Training and Labor-Management Cooperation,” Transitions: A Newsletter for Training and Education in the Transit Industry, Vol. 4, No. 2, Spring, 1996.

Jonathan Feldman, "A New Transportation Infrastructure Agenda for the New York Metropolitan Region," Business, Labor and Community Coalition of New York, September 1997. This article is available at this website: http://www.webcom.com/ncecd/nytransportation.html Jonathan Feldman, “Broadening the Peace Dividend,” Society, Vol. 30, No. 4, May-June, 1993.