Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
emphasis in geography. But an interpretation of neo-classical thinking into a
spatial structure can be made through adding some “spatial friction”, while
maintaining the idea of factor flows which have a broad balancing effect between
regions
Centre and periphery
Two writers described most fully how neo-classical ideas can be translated into a
spatial model. Williamson (1965) described the way in which interregional
disparities might change over time through a developmental process, with
statistical evidence from many countries. This is a time-space model. Separately,
Friedmann (1966) described the evolution of these differences in a hypothetical
country where flows took place between the centre and periphery.
Williamson's contribution was to show how countries change over time in
their degree of income variation between regions. In an early stage, interregional
differences were thought to be small. Over time, as the first development impulse
was felt at one point, perhaps a port city or the main industrial centre, differences
grew (measured in per capita income) between the regions, because the other
regions, perhaps rural regions of subsistence agriculture, failed to change.
Differences reached a high point at some intermediate level of development,
when presumably the central region was advancing fast, but most regions
remained at a subsistence level, and thereafter the differences in income reduced,
from the evidence of the most advanced countries, to very low levels again. This
model of change was not based on historical data of the actual changes in one
country over time, but on data from many countries at different levels of
development, from which the actual process could only be inferred. Only for the
USA was there actual data showing this process to have happened over time,
which means there could be major flaws in the argument. Specifically, we do not
have evidence that India, at the bottom end of the development curve, will
become like the USA is today in terms of its regional balance. Possibly, no
country today can expect to follow the advanced countries because these latter
have a head-start in industry and others must follow a different path. Some
fragmentary evidence for LDCS is that the differences between regions are not
diminishing but widening in the present-day global economy. This criticism is
the same as that levelled at W.W.Rostow's (1960) famous model of economic
development. Rostow's model was in the same vein as that described by
Williamson, and is portrayed as a linear progression in one direction, using the
analogy of an aircraft taxiing and making progress through take-off and climb, to
reach a high cruising height when fully developed. There is insufficient evidence
to show that countries do all “take off' and climb towards this high level.
One well-known spatial model based loosely on neo-classical ideas is that of
Friedmann (1966), who described a centre and a differentiated periphery, in
which the movement of factors of production, labour and capital were portrayed
as following the predictions of the model. Friedmann's model hypothesized a
