|
昨天阅读2小时。累积阅读87小时。
The discussion on the economic role and meaning of the region has entered a critical stage. As indicated so far, not only is there an urge to (re)consider the position of regions in a wider economic and political perspective, there is also a fundamental debate about the nature and significance of spatial proximity, embedding and territorial governance. It does not come as a surprise, therefore, that present contributions to the debate vary quite strongly in the focus of their critique as well as recommendations for future theoretical development and research agendas. In this section, we will discuss the following issues that we feel are relevant for contemporary debate: (a) the general, and already a rather widespread, recognition of the need to understand the role of the non-local for economic interaction, and local growth and development; (b) the need to reconsider the issue of scale, and (c) the need to be specific about the kinds of networks involved in transcending local relations and building bridges between more distant actors. We will also give first indications of where contributions in this volume fit in the debate.
It is important to note that when using the network perspective, localities, regions and nations can be seen as deriving their roles and identities from the concrete mix of activities conglomerated in them. Hence, a region’s specificity, both in terms of local uniqueness and sense of place, is not grafted onto mythical endogenous roots and local harmony, enabling it to respond to global competitive pressures. Instead, it is a product of the way all kinds of influences, with different spatial articulations, join and blend locally in particular forms or ‘powergeometries’ (Massey 1999). Regions of any kind, including cities and urban regions, should not be equated with merely integrated functional systems, whose natural coherence turns them into competitive units. Rallet and Torre, in their analysis of proximity, also challenge the idea of local coherence and functionality:
If the agents’ economic spaces are more and more a combination of local and non-local relations, what should we make of Marshallian coherence of local economies? The diversity and heterogeneity of the elements composing the local economies can become factors of development, whereas, in the Marshallian approach, it is the specialisation and homogeneity of the economic, social and cultural fabric which are searched for it.
|