The illegal, the illicit and new geographies of uneven development

ABSTRACT

There have been significant changes in the geographies of uneven development and a considerable literature documenting these, at varying spatial scales. There is, however, a significant absence in the urban and regional development literature as to the significance of illegal activities in the economies of successful cities and regions. In response to this, this paper is focused around two sets of issues: first, the significance of illegality in the practices of the economies of ‘successful’ cities and regions in both Global North and South, with some attention to the illegal in marginalized places; and second, the relationship between state policies and illegality.

KEYWORDS:

• economically successful cities and regions
• state policies
• new forms of uneven development
• illegal
• illicit
• Global North and South

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This is a revised version of a paper presented to the 2018 Annual Conference of the Regional Studies Association, Lugano, Switzerland, June 3–6, 2018. It was revised in the light of helpful comments from participants at that conference and subsequently by two journal referees.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Ray Hudson http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6896-973X

Notes

1 The author is grateful to a referee for pointing this out.