ABSTRACT
The economic and urban landscape is increasingly shaped by forces operating at a global rather than a national scale (Cooke 1986; Dicken 1986; Knox and Agnew 1989). Although the transition from pre-industrial, through industrial to post-industrial economic structures is variable in time and space, particularly between core and periphery, it is clear that an increase in the ‘openness’ of individual national economies is a key characteristic of the transition. As the Industrial Revolution unfolded longdistance economic interaction became a necessity because of the growing discontinuity between economic and political institutions (earlier economic landscapes had been dominated by single major players such as China) (Knox and Agnew 1989). Such fragmentation encouraged capitalist modes of production and more diverse division of labour. But some nations within this more fragmented economic system responded more quickly than others to the opportunities for trade or market control, thus promoting unevenness in rates of development and therefore in the spatial effects of capitalist production.
