https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6987-3833
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ABSTRACT
Over the past few years, scholarly debates on new path development have attracted increasing attention within the economic geography literature. This work distinguishes various trajectories of regional and industrial evolution. So far, these evolutionary trajectories have been mainly conceptualized as ‘positive’ forms of path development. However, in reality, many regions are undergoing phases that can be characterized as ‘negative’ trajectories. Despite their potentially detrimental social and political effects, negative pathways have to date largely been ignored in the extant literature. This paper seeks to shed light on the ‘dark side’ of path development by outlining a typology of ‘pathways of decline’. Three forms of negative pathways are identified, namely path contraction, path downgrading and path delocalization. Empirical illustrations are provided for each of them.
Acknowledgement
The authors wish to thank to both referees and the editor for their insightful feedback. Usual disclaimer applies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Arguably, other factors such as depletion of natural resources (Campling, Citation2012), environmental catastrophes like earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, hurricanes, and man-made pollution (Martin, Citation2012), or sudden disruption of economies and international trade, for example by civil unrest (Hough, Citation2011), can play a key role, as shown by studies employing a disarticulation perspective (Bair & Werner, Citation2011a, Citation2011b).
