The Geography of Growth

In effect the subject of economic growth was broached when an economic landscape was built up in Chapter 3. It was central to the discussion of agglomeration economies and the last chapter dealt with some of the geographic processes involved in economic adjustment and growth. It is now time to dwell exactly on the combination of circumstances which lead to the expansion of the wealth per person of an economy and which we call economic growth. Most of the theory put forward thus far has attended to the problem of sharing limited resources among various uses in an instantaneous world without technical or attitudinal change among a given population of actors. The process of economic growth is compounded of a multiplicity of political, demographic, technical and preferential events, decisions and discoveries. So far no generalized abstraction has come close to mirroring the richness of the real process. Some of its principal components have, however, been isolated in a fashion which is of use. They provide light in seeking policies to raise well-being in regions and countries where people have not enjoyed much relief from hunger and the limitations of poverty.