ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the reasons for the generally striking association between rural and small town environments and high-technology industry growth. It attempts to isolate key forces whose importance for competitive success has channelled high-technology industry to particular kinds of areas. The chapter highlights the vital role of particular local environments and the different types of high-technology development which have evolved out of different local socio-economic structures. It illustrates the key role of local environments, of inherited locally-specific social and economic structures, in influencing and shaping the nature of high-technology activity in three arguably very different high-technology locations, namely Cambridgeshire, Berkshire and central Scotland. The chapter demonstrates the surprisingly widespread nature of high-technology growth spatially in Britain, in a context of national high-technology job decline focussed on major cities and conurbations. It discusses the job losses associated with the adoption of new technologies in existing industries.
