Clusters, dispersion and the spaces in between: For an economic geography of the banal

Abstract

While the geographical clustering of economic activities remains an enduring feature of the industrial landscape and a perennial source of theoretical and empirical interest, the geographical scale at which external economies and agglomerative effects are now claimed to operate is on the increase. Such changes in the spatial form and potential causes of agglomeration over time pose important questions. How should we analyse changes in the spatial extent of external economies and agglomerative effects? Ought we to pay more attention to the sorts of banal economic spaces thrown up as part of increasingly diffuse forms of agglomeration? To answer the first of these questions, it is noted how ec..