ABSTRACT
The ongoing globalisation processes have triggered a reconsideration of the relationship between the concepts of space and time in geography. RodríguezPose describes the contemporary configuration of the global economic space as “becoming more ‘spiky’, peppered with economic agglomerations separated by ever growing economic ‘deserts’” (Rodríguez-Pose, 2011, p. 351). The possibility of networking through advanced information and communication technologies creates a flatter world (Rodríguez-Pose and Crescenzi, 2008) that essentially unfolds by creating bridges between the mountain tops (i.e. urban regions). But it also creates a steeper slope to climb for actors in the valleys, i.e. what will later be introduced as less-favoured regions, that strive to be part of these processes. Although the predicaments of the death of distance (Cairncross, 1997) or the annihilation of space (Castells, 1996; Massey, 1999) never materialised as potently as imagined a few decades ago, it is fair to acknowledge that urban economies have indeed become increasingly powerful in the global economy, often casting a shadow on their respective national economies, and that the processes of socio-economic marginalisation have heightened on the periphery of these centres.
