IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/loceco/v35y2020i1p7-26.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Beyond the city region? Uneven governance and the evolution of regional economic development in Scotland

Author

Listed:
  • David Clelland

Abstract

The sub-national governance of economic development in the UK has, since 2010, been reconfigured towards city-regions and ‘place-based’ approaches at least notionally embedded in specific local needs and resources. In the context of asymmetric decentralisation and fiscal austerity, this raises questions about places outside or peripheral to this framework, and the risk of further divergence in relative capacities to ‘do’ economic development. While changes in England are subject to extensive critique, institutional arrangements in Scotland have received less attention, having avoided comparable dramatic restructuring. The governance of economic development has however undergone significant evolution, with elements of both centralisation and regionalisation apparent. This paper maps emerging sub-national geographies in Scotland through the lens of state rescaling and multi-scalar governance. Analysing processes of change, it argues that the UK Government’s extension of ‘City Deals’ to Scotland made more explicit tensions within an existing city-regional approach and prompted greater attention to implications for peripheral and non-city regions. The introduction of Deals for non-city regions, a system of regional economic partnerships, and a new enterprise agency for the rural South, can all be seen as attempts to reconcile this focus on city-regions as drivers of growth with a desire for ‘regional equity’, and as the latest developments in an ongoing search for the appropriate scales for policy.

Suggested Citation

  • David Clelland, 2020. "Beyond the city region? Uneven governance and the evolution of regional economic development in Scotland," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 35(1), pages 7-26, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:loceco:v:35:y:2020:i:1:p:7-26
    DOI: 10.1177/0269094219899917
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0269094219899917
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0269094219899917?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Harrison, 2007. "From competitive regions to competitive city-regions: a new orthodoxy, but some old mistakes," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(3), pages 311-332, May.
    2. Brenner, Neil, 2004. "New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199270064, Decembrie.
    3. John Harrison, 2012. "Life after Regions? The Evolution of City-regionalism in England," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(9), pages 1243-1259, October.
    4. Andy Pike & Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & John Tomaney, 2017. "Shifting horizons in local and regional development," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(1), pages 46-57, January.
    5. Fabrizio Barca & Philip McCann & Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose, 2012. "The Case For Regional Development Intervention: Place‐Based Versus Place‐Neutral Approaches," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(1), pages 134-152, February.
    6. Mark Goodwin & Martin Jones & Rhys Jones, 2005. "Devolution, constitutional change and economic development: Explaining and understanding the new institutional geographies of the British state," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(4), pages 421-436.
    7. John Harrison, 2008. "Stating the Production of Scales: Centrally Orchestrated Regionalism, Regionally Orchestrated Centralism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(4), pages 922-941, December.
    8. Nick Bailey & Ivan Turok, 2001. "Central Scotland as a Polycentric Urban Region: Useful Planning Concept or Chimera?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 38(4), pages 697-715, April.
    9. Mia Gray & Anna Barford, 2018. "The depths of the cuts: the uneven geography of local government austerity," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 11(3), pages 541-563.
    10. Lee Pugalis & Alan Townsend, 2013. "Rescaling of Planning and Its Interface with Economic Development," Planning Practice & Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 104-121, February.
    11. Andy Pike & David Marlow & Anja McCarthy & Peter O’Brien & John Tomaney, 2015. "Editor's choice Local institutions and local economic development: the Local Enterprise Partnerships in England, 2010–," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 8(2), pages 185-204.
    12. Bob Jessop, 2005. "The Political Economy Of Scale And European Governance1," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 96(2), pages 225-230, April.
    13. Bob Jessop, 2000. "The Crisis of the National Spatio‐Temporal Fix and the Tendential Ecological Dominance of Globalizing Capitalism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 323-360, June.
    14. John Allen & Allan Cochrane, 2007. "Beyond the Territorial Fix: Regional Assemblages, Politics and Power," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(9), pages 1161-1175.
    15. Ivan Turok & Nick Hopkins, 1998. "Competition and Area Selection in Scotland's New Urban Policy," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 35(11), pages 2021-2061, November.
    16. Neil Brenner, 2009. "Open questions on state rescaling," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 2(1), pages 123-139.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Graham Haughton & Philip Allmendinger, 2015. "Fluid Spatial Imaginaries: Evolving Estuarial City-regional Spaces," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(5), pages 857-873, September.
    2. lain Deas & Alex Lord, 2006. "From a New Regionalism to an Unusual Regionalism? The Emergence of Non-standard Regional Spaces and Lessons for the Territorial Reorganisation of the State," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 43(10), pages 1847-1877, September.
    3. Enrico Gualini & Carola Fricke, 2019. "‘Who governs’ Berlin’s metropolitan region? The strategic-relational construction of metropolitan scale in Berlin–Brandenburg’s economic development policies," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 37(1), pages 59-80, February.
    4. Harrison, John, 2012. "Towards the new "regional world"?," Arbeitsberichte der ARL: Aufsätze, in: Growe, Anna & Heider, Katharina & Lamker, Christian & Paßlick, Sandra & Terfrüchte, Thomas (ed.), Polyzentrale Stadtregionen - Die Region als planerischer Handlungsraum, volume 3, pages 10-21, ARL – Akademie für Raumentwicklung in der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft.
    5. John Harrison, 2008. "Stating the Production of Scales: Centrally Orchestrated Regionalism, Regionally Orchestrated Centralism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(4), pages 922-941, December.
    6. John Harrison, 2014. "Rethinking City-regionalism as the Production of New Non-State Spatial Strategies: The Case of Peel Holdings Atlantic Gateway Strategy," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(11), pages 2315-2335, August.
    7. Krisztina Varró, 2012. "Reconsidering the English Question as a Matter of Democratic Politics and Spatial Justice," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 30(1), pages 29-45, February.
    8. Antoine Grandclement & Guilhem Boulay, 2021. "From The Uneven De-Diversification Of Local Financial Resources To Planning Policies: The Residentialization Hypothesis," Post-Print halshs-03322259, HAL.
    9. Antoine Grandclement & Guilhem Boulay, 2021. "From the uneven de-diversification of local financial resources to planning policies: The residentialization hypothesis," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(6), pages 1454-1472, September.
    10. Andrew E. G. Jonas & Andrew R. Goetz & Sutapa Bhattacharjee, 2014. "City-regionalism as a Politics of Collective Provision: Regional Transport Infrastructure in Denver, USA," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(11), pages 2444-2465, August.
    11. David Waite & Gillian Bristow, 2019. "Spaces of city-regionalism: Conceptualising pluralism in policymaking," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 37(4), pages 689-706, June.
    12. Allan Cochrane, 2012. "Making up a Region: The Rise and Fall of the ‘South East of England’ as a Political Territory," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 30(1), pages 95-108, February.
    13. Michael Buser, 2014. "Democratic Accountability and Metropolitan Governance: The Case of South Hampshire, UK," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(11), pages 2336-2353, August.
    14. Wilmsmeier, Gordon & Monios, Jason, 2015. "The production of capitalist “smooth” space in global port operations," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 59-69.
    15. Danny MacKinnon & Louise Kempton & Peter O’Brien & Emma Ormerod & Andy Pike & John Tomaney, 2022. "Reframing urban and regional ‘development’ for ‘left behind’ places [The shadow of the Pithead: understanding social and political attitudes in former coal mining communities in the UK]," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 15(1), pages 39-56.
    16. HaeRan Shin & Se Hoon Park & Jung Won Sonn, 2015. "The emergence of a multiscalar growth regime and scalar tension: the politics of urban development in Songdo New City, South Korea," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 33(6), pages 1618-1638, December.
    17. Kristian Olesen & Carsten J Hansen, 2020. "Introducing business regions in Denmark: The ‘businessification’ of strategic spatial planning?," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 38(2), pages 366-383, March.
    18. Kevin Fox Gotham, 2014. "Racialization and Rescaling: Post-Katrina Rebuilding and the Louisiana Road Home Program," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 773-790, May.
    19. Federico Savini, 2013. "The Governability of National Spatial Planning: Light Instruments and Logics of Governmental Action in Strategic Urban Development," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(8), pages 1592-1607, June.
    20. Jacob Salder, 2020. "Spaces of regional governance: A periodisation approach," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 38(6), pages 1036-1054, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:loceco:v:35:y:2020:i:1:p:7-26. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/index.shtml .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.