Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
major coal-mining region with related heavy engineering, became a problem
region from the 1930s with the decline of coal, but in the 1980s has achieved a
new position with much light industry, since this region lies as an appendix to
the Bristol region at one end of the M4 motorway high-technology corridor.
Centre and periphery are defined, as with the world systems or the NIDL (new
international division of labour) models, in terms of the role each can play in the
vertically integrated production system.
Nor can the position of a region with respect to an industry be predicted.
Massey (1984) used the example of the shoe industry to show the fickle (from
the point of view of specific regions) changes in location. In 1800 the industry
was located in London. It moved out for cheaper labour to Northampton among
other places. Industrial organization was into factories in the town, cutting the
leather, and domestic work at home by women, often in villages, stitching the
shoes together. This changed later to bring all the industry into the factories. In
recent decades, the industry has decentralized out to the smaller towns and
villages.
Points of comparison between left and right
In the various left-wing analyses, the idea of declining inequalities through some
process of balancing factor movements is denied, which clearly differentiates the
whole school from that of the right wing. There are, for example, critiques of the
growth poles strategies from a strong left wing point of view, to show that these
are set up with the needs of large-scale capitalism rather than regions in mind,
and that for the poor countries, the whole concept of growth poles is inadequate
or inappropriate (Conroy 1973). For world systems, there are possibilities for any
individual region or country to improve its lot, but the system remains in place,
with a powerful centre that controls or restricts the development of the periphery.
There are some points of agreement between left and right, however, which
should not be overlooked. Most importantly, the analysis from both sides is that
development is an exogenous process, relying on some distant source or centre.
Where they differ is in the interpretation of what the influence of this process
may be. For the right, it is a beneficial influence, bringing forward development
through the natural movement of the factors of production. In the long term, the
higher production and consumption levels of the centre are relayed out to the
peripheries. For the left, the alternative view is that the effects are negative: that
the growth of the centre attracts out both the capital and the human skills of the
periphery, which end up in the centre. Because of the control systems exercised
in the centre, the development process restricts any progress of the periphery,
and it remains an area of raw-material production and low-skill manufacture.
With regard to the aims and the policies that emerge from these analyses, for
the left wing there is a strong view that inequality between groups should be
eliminated, enunciated more clearly than from the right wing. Much of the policy to
enact the levelling process is sectoral, not regional, such as fiscal policy to level
