Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
2.3
A Triple-Layer Representation of the Spatial Economy
The notion of space is fraught with many conceptual problems, both ontological
and operational (see, for example, Russell 1976 ; Harvey 1990 ; Lefebvre 1991 ;
Hillier 2007 ; Braun 2011 ). Space can be understood in a variety of contexts:
￿ Mathematical (abstract or absolute), in the sense of the metric (distance) that
defines it;
￿ Physical, as a characteristic property of matter;
￿ Geographical, as a result of the evolution of nature (real space) outside a human
influence;
￿ Social (relational), defined by relative distances (or inversed proximity) pro-
duced by human communities in the course of history;
￿ The entire surface of the earth, or parts of it (real space).
Space is the centrepiece of regional science. According to Ponsard ( 1988 ):
its introduction does not mean corrections in detail; its introduction changes
everything. Because space is not economically neutral”.
There is a growing awareness among regional scientists that geographic space is
not only a passive space (a projection of activities onto a two-dimensional plane),
but increasingly also an active space. Several scholars have even agreed that in the
past decades space has been de-humanized and objectified or that space was often
seen as a dead or immobile entity based on positive measurements rather than on
actions (see Graham 1997 ;Soja 1989 ). A more pronounced role of space—in terms
of dynamic space or space-time evolution—has therefore been advocated in more
recent years (see Thrift 1996 ). The ' where ' question is more and more replaced by a
' how ' and ' why ' question on the geography of human activity. Furthermore, the role
of point-based physical geography in the location of socio-economic activities has
diminished, in favour of an increasingly important role of spatial interactions and
communication. Consequently, even though the 'death of distance' hypothesis has
largely been proven to overstate the importance of the emerging 'virtual reality',
connectivity and accessibility—both physical and virtual—have become key
concepts in modern regional science, next to traditional concepts like agglomera-
tion and urbanization.
The currently popular NEG (see Fujita et al. 1999 ) reiterates these conside-
rations by drawing attention to the close interwovenness between agglomeration
and trade. The authors offer an attempt to re-track traditional economic geography
(and regional science), while they also aim to build a new economics of space,
based on a few rigorous economic principles. The authors start by observing a
regrettable division line between mainstream economics and the economics of
location and aim to build a bridge on the basis of a few simple (certainly not
universally valid) concepts, in particular the imperfect competition model marked
by increasing returns to scale [originating from Dixit and Stiglitz ( 1977 )]. In an
open (multi-region or multi-country) system various types of spatial agglomeration
patterns may emerge, depending inter alia on transport costs, forward and back-
ward linkages, and immobility of resources. The authors illustrate their arguments
...
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