Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
development process by asserting that it could be compared to the take-off and
ascending flight of an aeroplane. An even progression was portrayed, from
preparation for take-off (among the poorest countries), taxiing for take-off, take-
off itself, and steep climb until cruising height (the mature, high-consumption
economy) was reached. This idea, coming from an analyst of economic history
and based largely on European experience, was soon questioned, and the
dependency writers in particular claimed that development could not only be
stalled, but even put into reverse, perhaps with a crash finish, although the
aeroplane analogy was not pursued!
Another version of the irregularity over time has been in terms of waves. At
various times, and more insistently in recent years, the concept has been
advanced that development may be visualized in terms of waves of long duration,
during which a particular technology is the lead and a number of products are
associated with it. After the burst of development associated with one wave,
there is a period of stagnation or retreat before the next. Kondratiev waves, as
they are named, after the leading Russian exponent of the idea in the early
twentieth century, contribute much to our understanding of development (Hall &
Preston 1988). Another set of ideas which links in with this view is that of
Schumpeter (1939), who showed how innovation linked to business. With a new
technology, there is a rise in employment and income and a positive attitude
towards ongoing research and innovation. As the products mature, there is less
margin for improvement and competition reduces profitability, and many firms
cease innovating. Replacing human labour with machines reduces incomes
further and there are job losses. Finally, innovators perceive new opportunities,
and people without jobs are very willing to take a risk and move on to a new
technology. Each of the technologies uses new human and physical resources, so
that development 'hits' on one or several regions, stays with it for a while, then
moves, often quite quickly, to focus on a new region or regions with the best
factor mix.
Regional development in Britain will be described in this topic in terms of
these waves (see Ch. 6), although it is shown in the same chapter that the
equivalent process in Spain, while it is also an uneven process over space and
time, does not correspond to this model. For the less developed countries, the
process of development is so recent that the waves may be visualized as being
virtually compressed into one. The general point, however, is the irregularity of
development impulses over time and space.
A second point is that development is not a spaceless phenomenon, and it also
occurs in lumpy form over geographic space. Specifically, it tends to be highly
concentrated, especially, over the last 200 years, in urban-industrial
nodes. Through a series of positive feedback loops, these nodes tend to be self-
maintaining over a period. New industries are attracted to them because of a
variety of advantages in provision of goods, information and services. In some
cases, a diffusion outwards of their dynamism may occur, and in others the
impulse of development is retained in a single centre, but the central fact is the
