Manufacturing by design: the rise of regional intermediaries and the re-emergence of collective action

This article illustrates the role of regional intermediaries in the return of manufacturing to cities and the centre of policy debates. The article analyses how supply chain, labour market and innovation intermediaries maintain, embed and expand flexibly specialised production capacity and create spatial variation. The article demonstrates how regional intermediaries support small manufacturers and enable firms to develop as a localised, networked group—effectively operating as a cohort not tied by sector or technology but by process. These intermediaries recast manufacturing as a practice of working with rather than working for others, thus reintroducing both agency and collective action to the US manufacturing narrative. The typology presented highlights diversity among intermediaries and underscores their contribution to emerging 21st-century manufacturing models.