Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
other component parts of the economic system (Lambooy, 2002, 2006; Leidig, 2002).
New spatial patterns emerged during the Industrial Revolution, more in particular the
industrialised cities. More recently in the time of the ICT revolution, Silicon Valley is an
example of the result of the combined inl uences of technology, economic development
and new forms of organisational structures. Urban regions, i rms and consumers are
again in a period of restructuring their space, adjusting to new technologies. In many
regions old technologies and old sectors have remained important. It is dii cult for eco-
nomic actors to alter their perspective from past successes towards new opportunities, a
situation that is sometimes indicated by the concepts of 'path dependency' and 'lock-in'.
This is one of the reasons why old manufacturing regions have great dii culties in using
new technologies and developing new kinds of spatial structure. They need to develop
a strategy of 'path-creation' into new i elds of opportunities (Antonelli, 2008; Boschma
and Lambooy, 2000; David, 1985; Martin, 2006; Martin and Sunley, 2006). However,
this can take a long time to realise. Technological, economic and spatial restructuring
processes use dif erent time-scales.
Arthur contends: 'Economic patterns are ever changing, showing perpetually novel
behaviour and emergent phenomena. Complexity portrays the economy, not as deter-
ministic, predictable, and mechanistic, but as process dependent, organic, and evolving'
(Arthur, 1999; p. 107). It is not entirely clear how the processes of economic and techno-
logical changes af ect spatial structures and vice versa (Antonelli, 2003, 2008; Lambooy,
2002; Martin and Sunley, 2006). However, with the concept of 'complex adaptive behav-
iour' it can be shown that evolutionary economics not only emphasises novelty, selec-
tion, retention and dif usion, but also the continuous adaptive behaviour of the actors
to survive. The survivors are not primarily those who are the 'i ttest', but those who best
adapt to new circumstances in their economic, spatial and institutional environment.
The topic of change and adaptive behaviour belongs to the core of evolutionary and
institutional economics. For EEG the development of spatial patterns can be added to
that approach (Boschma and Lambooy, 1999).
In EEG, several dimensions of technology are distinguished, in particular the dif-
ferentiating ef ects of technology, heterogeneity of economic structures and the change
of structures over time (Geels, 2002; Pasinetti, 1981; Peneder, 2002). Evolutionary
economics accepts heterogeneity and 'real dynamics' (in contrast to the 'comparative
statics approach'), the change of structures by the introduction of new technologies, with
concomitant unpredictable outcomes (Boschma, 2004; Doi and Mino, 2005; Lambooy,
2002; Lambooy and van Oort, 2005; Metcalfe, 1994). Metcalfe discusses the specii c
value of an evolutionary approach. In his words 'adaptive systems' with various emer-
gent and unpredictable processes are inherent properties of evolutionary development.
(Metcalfe, 1994, p. 933) contends: 'A distinctive feature of the evolutionary approach is
its adoption of a behavioural theory of the i rm and its focus upon learning processes and
adaptive behaviour'. Adjustment is extremely important in the case of the introduction
of pervasive technologies (GPTs). For our purpose, we emphasise that various technolo-
gies can converge and develop into general purpose technologies (GPTs). In the words
of Metcalfe et al. (2006, p. 8):
All the aggregates we deal with are emergent consequences of the interaction between dif erent
industries in relation with the growth of productivity and the distribution of the ensuing incre-
