7. Economic Geography

In the era of positivism, a scientific approach in which the emphasis is put on the universal (nature) laws and quantitative methods, the systematic and deductive methodologies were developed and also applied in economic geography. Typically, as mentioned in Coe et al. (2013), economic geographers were looking for universal principles lying under spatial patterns of economic activity and using quantitative data and methods (statistics in particular) to find and proof such spatial patterns. According to Scott (2000), these quantitative methodologies were used in two ways – (1) spatial analysis using mathematical models (with the advances in computer science), and (2) integrating space and location into neoclassical models of economic theory. During this era, scholars were following the famous German location theories, applying them and building new concepts on these classical works. Typical applications included searching and evaluating optimal sites for various facilities, urban system models (e.g. with the use of physical concepts such as entropy, chaos theory and fractal geometry), accessibility of urban functions, innovation diffusion models, or optimisation of land use patterns (Coe et al. 2013; Aoyama et al. 2011). Although this positivistic approach was not universally used throughout the whole economic geography community, it certainly helped to encapsulate and specify by then not really bounded research agenda of economic geography. Widespread enthusiasm about new opportunities in spatial and regional science and economic geography led to attracting new young scientists who are nowadays called as a “young cadets” (Aoyama et al. 2011), such as Brian Barry, William Bunge, Waldo Tobler, or Arthur Getis. Their “father”, William Garrison, is treated as the central quantitative (economic) geography figure after World War II. Considering that the generation of quantitative geographer was significantly influencing the field (they become a new classics from today’s point of view), their heritage is still present in contemporary approaches in economic geography, in its quantitative branch respectively. According to Coe et al. (2013), quantitative methodologies are evident and needed in research where large datasets are analysed to find and describe hidden patterns of studied phenomena represented by the data.

The second major trend in economic geography identified by Coe et al. (2013) is called structuralism. Generally, structuralism represents a theoretical concept based on a presumption that various phenomena and processes visible “on a surface” have their causations hidden deep in their (invisible) structure (Daněk 2013). Therefore, for structuralists, the key research task is to unveil and understand these structures. It is also worth to mentions two (other) important subsets of structuralism that penetrated economic geography, such as dependency theory (Frank 1966) and world system theory (Wallerstein 1974), which were then mostly applied in social sciences (Aoyama et al. 2011). One of the most important structures linked with people’s actions were a social class, race, or gender (Coe et al. 2013), which raised general and scientific awareness of social issues. Since the social aspects of humankind and their spatial (geographical) manifestations and consequences were barely possible to be grasped by the quantitative approach, a new trajectory had to be found. As Coe et al. (2013) noted, quantitative geography and location theories reacted to the economic expansion of late 19th, and up to the mid-twentieth century, in the late 1960s and early 1970, the economies (at least in the West) were starting to decelerate. This resulted in slowly emerging social problems and new issues (e.g. urban segregation, gender inequalities, international deindustrialisation, changing labour markets), which required the understanding deeper structure of ongoing economic processes. It is one of the most important (economic) geographers – David Harvey – who shifted geographical research interests from its quantitative approach to Marxism and political activism (Harvey, 1974). As noted by Barnes (2011), this Harvey’s twist took only 3 years. While in 1969 he celebrated quantitative geography in his book Explanation in Geography (Harvey 1969), in 1972 Harvey (1972) began by attacking the usefulness of the theory and statistical techniques (Barnes 2011). Under the umbrella of Marxist theories, Harvey and his students were convinced that economies based on capitalism and class-inequalities would lead to the crisis. The Marxian concept was not “comfortable” for many geographers, however, identification of class-based power relations in economic processes, and to a conceptualisation of uneven development became acceptable in geographical mainstream (Coe et al. 2013). Another approach, rather positive in terms of preventing economic crisis, is known as regulation theory focusing on the role of institutions or state itself in order to avert a crisis. A wide range of topics within the structuralism is summarised by Coe et al. (2013), i.e. Marxism, institutionalism, feminism and anti-racism, by identifying a common denominator – the existence of underlying structures of power.

The last major sub-field of modern economic geography described by Coe et al. (2013) is influenced by philosophical concept post-structuralism, which generally allows the existence of multiple “truths” depending on the researcher’s circumstances (the knowledge is time and place-specific). Taking the explanations of post-structuralism from Daněk (2013), we can say that it is an approach of several “small” theories considered as toolboxes which can geographers select to achieve their goals. Post-structuralism denies its predecessor - structuralism – i.e. complete rejection of “hidden essence”, fully scientific representation of the world and one universal truth (Daněk 2013). Coe et al. (2013) identified several ways of how post-structuralism approach penetrated economic geography:

Coe et al. (2013) summarise that post-structural approaches to Economic Geography ask how we are constructing our knowledge about the economic world and what are the consequences of understanding things in that way.

Even though the economic geography is a subdiscipline with no exact border and with a great ability to absorb knowledge and methods from other disciplines, several future trajectories can be found. These future pathways presented in this part is a fusion from the books by Coe et al. (2013), Aoyama et al. (2011) and chapter in International Encyclopedia of Human Geography by Barnes (2013a). Starting with Coe et al. (2013), authors identified following topics which will resonate in the next few years: (1) a shift in global economic power (although there is uneven distribution of global wealth, its reorganisation is underway – e.g. with significantly rising economies of China, India and other developing countries in Asia); (2) new forms of global integration (in terms of migration and adaptation to new conditions and labour force, and also in terms of increasing mobility of financial capital. This will lead to new forms of regulations and collective control on this issues); (3) continued dynamism in the development of new technology (information and communication technologies significantly changed how we consume, what we consume, and how we work. It will raise the needs of regulation and control of cyberspace, e.g. when it comes to personal data protection); and (4) the need to address environmental challenges (there is global interdependence on the natural environment. Thus it will be inevitable to cope with climate change. Economic costs of a changing climate will be significant, while new green technologies, carbon emissions, or smart land use will be more and more a subject to study).

Aoyama et al. (2011) predict that the knowledge economy steadily gaining significance will be the basis for newly emerging sectors of economic activities of knowledge-based resources. Financialisation of economies will gain more importance with the financial crisis of 2008, while consumption is a relatively new focus for economic geographers (formerly preoccupied with production). Finally, Aoyama et al. (2011) pinpoint a concept of sustainable development (emerged in the 1980s) that is on the rise due to the intersection of climate change and economic change in cities, suburbs and in developing countries.

Barnes (2009, 2013a, b) looks at the economic geography as a subject and notes that the current discipline’s inconsistency is the only constant. Influences from other disciplines seem to have a greater effect on the economic geography, which makes its future not assured and challenging. However, Barnes (2013a) identified four major areas in contemporary debates and research in economic geography: (1) Discussion of methods (from quantitative, through qualitative, to in-depth case study and action research) and their consequent liberal and open applications; (2) along methodological openness, also theories are somewhat permissive – Thrift and Olds (1996) speak of “polycentric” economic geography in this sense; (3) various grasping approaches to globalisation (international division of labour, multinational corporations, international financial capital, communications, and global commodity chains are just a few examples of the globalisation issue coverage); and (4) primary resources and nature become the focus of disciplinary discussions (mainly due to their socio-economic-cultural impact). As Barnes (2013a, b) concludes, the unusual challenge for the discipline will be less breaking new ground, than holding its existing one.

In order to demonstrate how all these future outlooks, with the newest from 2013 by Coe et al. (2013), fits the keywords of the current agenda, we included a word cloud from the last Global Conference on Economic Geography (GCEG) held in Cologne (Germany) in summer 2018 (Fig. 7.1). This word cloud is composed out of 100 most cited words in the conference paper titles which speaks for itself. At first glance, the most visible words are “global” and “development”, which is interesting since it is in line with some of the future directions mentioned in the previous text. The umbrella topic of the conference was “Dynamics in an Unequal World”, so the issues such as Poverty, Inequality, and the Global South were intensively discussed. To provide a bit more complete picture of the flagship conference on economic geography, the topic of the fourth GCEG held in Oxford (UK) in 2015 was “Mapping Economies in Transformation”.