Zur Zukunft der Wirtschaftsgeographie in Deutschland

Abstract

The future of economic geography in Germany. Structural changes in the German system of higher education exert increasing pressure on geography as an academic discipline. This paper discusses these forces of change from the viewpoint of a university manager before evaluating the resulting impacts and challenges for economic geography. It is argued that to survive in an increasingly competitive academic environment, the discipline needs to strengthen its profile and focus on its core competencies. Rather than following the route of a “cultural turn” or building walls to separate economic geography from economics, the author argues for a closer collaboration with economists in both research and teaching.

How important is geography for agglomeration?

“…The underlying idea is that geography affects the location choice of Þrms through its effect on transportation costs to input and to output markets. This is in line with the traditional location theory based on the work of Weber (see Schätzl 1998) and Krugmans New Economic Geography. However, location matters not only in the physical geography but also in the political geography.…”

Der raumwirtschaftliche Ansatz: der Aufstieg einer steuerungsorientierten, normativ geprägten Expertenkultur

“…Die damit häufig verbundene Ablehnung jeder Quantifizierung bzw. Modellbildung trifft dann allerdings nicht nur die Spatial Analysis, sondern jeden Versuch in der Wirtschaftsgeographie, Verhältnisse der Produktion und Distribution von Gütern auch quantitativ zu erfassen (Sheppard, 2001(Sheppard, , 2014 Der Terminus "raumwirtschaftliche Ansatz" wurde im deutschsprachigen Raum von Ludwig Schätzl in seiner Gießener Antrittsvorlesung (Schätzl, 1974) und in der ersten Auflage seines wirtschaftsgeographischen Lehrbuchs (Schätzl, 1978) geprägt. Sicher gab es in den 1970er Jahren eine Reihe weiterer neuberufener Professoren auf Lehrstühlen der Wirtschaftsgeographie (teils zusammen mit der Sozialgeographie), die sich ebenso epistemologisch und methodisch an der "Spatial Analysis" orientierten, z.B.…”

The production of capitalist “smooth” space in global port operations

“…The trajectory of a port system could be seen to exemplify Marx's dictum that the capitalist system carries "within it the seeds of its own destruction" (Marx and Engels, 1850;unpaginated), as the port life cycle culminates in an inevitable decline after maturity (Cullinane and Wilmsmeier, 2011). In some cases, this decline can be reversed through restructuring (Charlier, 1992) or location splitting (Schätzl, 2003), both of which are, in any case, still a Marxian destruction and recreation of value through the transformation of space. Once a port terminal has been upgraded and expanded within the limit of its footprint, port operators then face "a surplus of capital relative to opportunities to employ that capital" (Harvey, 2006;p.…”