ABSTRACT
This book assembles the thoughts of a substantial number of leading intellectuals whose careers have been devoted to understanding regional development processes and, for many, reflection upon what might be useful policy suggestions, advice or interventions to optimise regional evolution. To a greater or lesser extent, all are fascinated with the project of the book, which is to ‘reframe’ regional development, and their chapters give expression to this interest and perspective. This does not mean that all chapters are written according to a specific ‘new order’. Rather, the majority are, to a greater or lesser extent, experiments in thinking about regional development from the viewpoints of four innovative macro-perspectives or ‘frames’. In some cases, the frames selected are sufficiently complementary that they can be, and are used in the same chapter without difficulty. So what are they? In the order they are introduced below they include: evolutionary complexity theory; evolutionary economic geography; emergence theory; and resilience theory. The great ‘reframing’ all have made is to recognise the veracity of Beinhocker's (2006) devastating conclusion from his major critical review of ‘Traditional Economics’ that its early founding fathers, Walras and Jevons, in their desperation to deploy prevailing physico-mathematic reasoning, led the field up a blind alley for more than a hundred years.
