ABSTRACT
The international recession of the early 1980s and the renewal of economic growth in the mid and late 1980s in the advanced industrial societies of North America and Europe have had major consequences for many towns and cities in their old established manufacturing regions. In the early 1980s a relatively sudden, unanticipated and apparently uncontrollable collapse of employment occurred in traditional materials and manufacturing industries (e.g. coal, steel, etc.). A process of 'deindusttialization'1 occurred leading to the graphic popular description of these regions as 'rust belts'.
