Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
21 Locked in decline? On the role of regional lock-ins
in old industrial areas
Robert Hassink
When the wind of change blows, some build walls, others build windmills. (Chinese proverb)
1. Introduction
Most of the currently debated theoretical concepts in economic geography try to explain
the positive sides of geographical clustering of industries, by emphasizing the positive
ef ects they have on networking and innovation (Lorenzen, 2005). This is exemplii ed
by the work on the rise of high-tech regions, industrial districts and regional production
clusters in North America and Western Europe and, to some extent, contrary to older
theories on unbalanced regional development that addressed both positive and negative
aspects of regional evolution (Myrdal, 1957). This chapter takes a critical stance on the
modern one-sided view of the correlation between geographical clustering of industries,
networking and innovation. It makes clear that the geographical clustering of industries
in some constellations negatively af ects innovativeness and renewal. This is particularly
the case in the under-theorized old industrial areas (Cooke, 1995; Hamm and Wienert,
1989). To some extent they can be regarded as the industrial districts of the past, in
which initial strengths based on geography and networks, such as industrial atmos-
phere, highly specialized infrastructure, close inter-i rm relations and strong support by
regional institutions, turned into barriers to innovation. In the 1990s Grabher (1993)
emphasized the role of path dependence and lock-ins as concepts explaining the lack of
renewal in old industrial areas in general and the Ruhr area in Germany in particular.
His studies can be linked to recent work done in order to introduce evolutionary eco-
nomics into economic geography (Boschma and Frenken, 2006; Boschma and Lambooy,
1999a; Essletzbichler, 2002; Essletzbichler and Winther, 1999; Martin and Sunley, 2006;
Maskell and Malmberg, 1999; Morgan, 1997; Schamp, 2000; Shapira and Fuchs, 2005;
Storper, 1997; see also Boschma and Martin, and Martin and Sunley, Chapters 1 and 3,
this volume). Unlike neoclassical theory, this school takes history and geography seri-
ously by recognizing the importance of place-specii c elements and processes to explain
broader spatial patterns of technology evolution. Since the lock-in concept is one of the
few promising modern concepts explaining the negative sides of clustering, it forms the
theoretical core of this chapter. However, the lock-in concept has some weaknesses I
aim to tackle here. First, the inductive, bottom-up concept is too weak to be a sound
theoretical concept in economic geography yet, as it is mainly based on observations
in a few regions (the Ruhr area mainly) and one kind of traditional industrial complex
(steel and coal-mining). Second, little systematic cross-regional and cross-sectoral com-
parative research has been done on the specii c role of lock-ins in hindering restructuring
processes in old industrial areas. There are a few recently published exceptions, such
as the papers by Chapman (2005), Schamp (2005), Hudson (2005) and Van Grunsven
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