This book takes its starting point by considering a threefold polarisation within the EU: an increasing demographic concentration in and around the bigger cities with population decline in many other regions, economic development favouring a smaller number of capital and metropolitan regions with seemingly less economic prosperity in most other regions as well as a spatially and socially uneven distribution of wealth with a growing number of people feeling neglected and favouring rightwing conservative or even extremist political positions in a number of 1
In recent decades, manufacturing industries in Europe have undergone a deep transformation due to global market competition, automation, and adaptation to globalized production patterns. The impact of deindustrialization and regional restructuring has been particularly strong on regions outside of metropolitan areas, which may be locked in their specific development path and cannot benefit from agglomeration effects. However, scholars are increasingly shifting their attention to processes of regional renewal, emphasizing the strengths and potentials of such regions. Such potentials holds the concept of Industrial Culture which is defined as a particular cultural setting made up of certain intangible assets, such as skills, attitudes, traditions, tangible monuments, and artefacts. Based on the case study of the district of Zwickau, the authors identify three dimensions of Industrial Culture. These cultural, social, and economic aspects can be underscored by different—albeit often overlapping—actions, opening up new development options for the region if embedded in a broad network of regional actors. Industrial Culture can thus be perceived as a strategic concept to form a coherent approach of regional development by integrating various existing activities in a region.
The goal of this penultimate chapter is to shed light on the conceptual value of the book. Growing social polarisation and economic inequalities unfolding in new forms across various places have brought about academic and policy debates on the meanings of ‘development’, the ways its dimensions (economic, social, cultural, political) are interrelated, and on how macro-structural changes are entangled with local and regional processes as well as institutional and social contexts. This chapter adds to this discussion by providing a better understanding of five interrelated topics: (1) the regional policy paradox in the European Union, (2) historical legacies leading to administrative centralisation trends in Eastern Europe, (3) globalisation and regional industrial restructuring causing further polarisation, (4) the mechanisms that bring about inequalities, and (5) the production of inequalities through social practices and discourses. Based on these key topics, the chapter argues for more agency-centred research in peripheral contexts, which focuses on how actors, organisations and institutions shape the development of currently peripheralised places.
There is a growing interest in understanding development processes and opportunities in small and medium-sized towns that so far did not attract much attention in mainstream urban theory. Conventional growth-oriented approaches fail to capture the complexity of local development and policy-making processes because they prioritise production factors and underrate the role of discourse and place-based identity. This paper aims to explore the linkages between narratives, place identity, and local development. As local actors try to make sense of a place’s past and future, they select, contribute to, and mobilise various local narratives. Multiple narratives feed into and are part of a place’s identity that defines a frame for possible development options. The paper uses the case of Zeitz in Saxony-Anhalt (Germany) to analyse the evolution of local development narratives from the 1970s until today. The paper concludes that: i) narrative-making is not a linear process; narratives, spatial imaginaries and local identity are complex, dynamic, and interconnected with each other; ii) local narratives help to construct a coherent imaginary of a place and are mutually intertwined with local development and policies; and iii) local narratives are interdependent with external events and strategies requiring a multiscalar relational perspective on local development processes.
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