ABSTRACT
Post communist transformation and the restructuring of the heavy industrial basin of Upper Silesia in Poland may, at first sight, seem remote from the problems of regional development in Scotland. Upper Silesia is trying to find a way to deal with heavy industry restructuring today while in Scotland that struggle ended in 1993 when the giant Ravenscraig steel works in Motherwell finally closed. From the 1920s Scottish heavy industry moved into a long term decline punctuated only by momentary relief when short periods of boom masked underlying forces. The concentration of heavy industry in the West of Scotland meant, as in post-communist Upper Silesia, that a sectoral problem was immediately also a regional problem it was a problem easy to diagnose. Upper Silesia was one of the few regions in Poland with a relatively strong and certainly deeply rooted sense of identity and therefore with individuals and organizations able to come to together in shaping policy.
