ABSTRACT
High-technology development is a process of business location, creation, and expansion that, since the 1980s, has contributed to the structural transformation and growth of many regional and local economies. Because new forms of high-tech regional development have emerged, the phenomenon has received increasing attention in regional economics and economic geography. High-tech firms are industrial ‘organizations engaged in technically sophisticated activities that lead to product or process innovations, new inventions, or the creation of knowledge’. The geography of high-tech industry has changed significantly over time. The newer sectors generally have different centers of agglomeration from the older ones in manufacturing. In maturing sectors, routinized activities have dispersed toward urban peripheries, toward smaller cities within the same regions, and interregionally. High-tech activity appears in a variety of production sectors, ranging from state-of-the-art products through routine products such as chemicals. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
