ABSTRACT
During the 1960s and 1970s, an entire category of economists, land planners, sociologists and geographers began to specialize in regional development. In industrialized economies everywhere, the reduction of regional disparities through the combined actions of government and big business had become a priority. The turnaround in the economic situation, however, fuelled by two oil crises and characterized by an epidemic of business closures and layoffs, put the whole question of economic strategy in a new light. Now that the relevance of the mega projects was being challenged, a new approach based on small businesses and local entrepreneurship began to attract attention. Throughout western nations, in city neighbourhoods, small towns and outlying regions, the signs of a new dynamism could be observed as the human, physical and financial resources of local communities were developed. Reports on the initial results of experimental work flowed in from all quarters: from working-class neighbourhoods in Chicago and Montreal, from former mining areas in the Appalachian mountains of Pennsylvania, from a satellite city in the Paris basin, from the far north of Lapland, from the islands of Cyprus and Cape Breton. Everywhere, whether in urban, semi-urban or rural areas, joint efforts by various social players to stimulate employment through the creation of small businesses provided evidence of a healthy reaction to the devastating economic crisis which struck in the mid-1970s.
