ABSTRACT
Since the early 1980s, the region has been central to thinking about the emerging character of the global economy. In fields as diverse as business management, industrial relations, economic geography, sociology, and planning, the regional scale has emerged as an organizing concept for interpretations of economic change. This book draws on the rich contemporary literature on the region but also addresses theoretical questions that preceded “the new regionalism.” Geographers, such as Doreen Massey (1979) and David Harvey (1989); economists, such as Bennett Harrison (1994a) and policy-makers, such as Stuart Holland (1976) raised “the regional question” in the context of arguments about equity and social justice. They understood the regional question as a way of thinking about social relations in space and about the forces shaping people’s opportunities and livelihoods in a world in which capital was increasingly mobile. Within this paradigm, space – particularly the regional scale – was problematic and so, the “regional question” spurred debate about how regional spaces were organized and to what purpose.
