thesis
Externalities, learning and governance perspectives on local economic development
- Publication date
- 27 January 2000
- Publisher
- In the late seventies, John Friedmann made an attempt to formulate a
new paradigm for regional development. His basic proposition was
that the then prevailing development paradigm had been dominated
by functional integration (Friedmann and Weaver, 1979). The integrity
of local territorial life had been surrendered in the interests of
growth and efficiency. Efficient large-scale functional organisation
meant centralisation at higher levels. The trans-national corporation
was seen as the ultimate embodiment of this approach. In his view
regional planning was at a crossroads; it would have to choose
between function and territory. He subsequently formulatedthe'development
of territory as an alternative paradigm. As a guiding principle
this was more egalitarian, distributive and integrative, including economic,
social as well as political dimensions of development.
Friedmann and Weaver's book received a mixed reception. One of the
critiques was by Jos Hilhorst, my predecessor (Hilhorst, 1980). The
formulation of function and territory as two opposites had, in his
view, a number of basic flaws. Subsequent developments in the literature
have proven Hilhorst to be right in a number of respects. The
interaction between function and territory became, in the late eighties
and early nineties, an important dimension of localised economic
growth and embedded development.
