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Seeing like a business: rethinking the role of business in regional development, planning and governance
Rather than accept the mainstream view that we need to bring the state back in to regional thinking, this paper argues that the state – and our analysis of it – is restricting understandings of urban and regional change and leading to a state-territorial trap. Analysing over forty years of literature on growth-oriented regionalism, the paper reveals important blind spots in our approaches to researching regions (and other forms of place making) and the role of business in regional development, planning and governance. Presenting a comparison of two spatial governance projects in the UK – The Peel Group’s Atlantic Gateway Strategy and UK Government’s Local Enterprise Partnerships – the paper reveals how business orchestrated regionalism is a new empirical reality, but one we are ill-equipped to understand. It argues that we need to move beyond the conceptual and methodological lock-in of business-as-usual approaches, to start ‘seeing like a business’ and revealing the practical politics and pragmatism by which actors – both state and business – are engaging to effect regional change and shape regional futures.
Funding
Regional Studies Association research grant
History
School
- Social Sciences and Humanities
Department
- Geography and Environment
Published in
Territory, Politics, GovernanceVolume
9Issue
4Pages
592-612Publisher
Taylor & Francis (Routledge)Version
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Rights holder
© Regional Studies AssociationPublisher statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Territory, Politics, Governance on 8 April 2020, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/21622671.2020.1743201.Acceptance date
2020-03-02Publication date
2020-04-08Copyright date
2020ISSN
2162-2671eISSN
2162-268XPublisher version
Language
- en
Depositor
Dr John Harrison. Deposit date: 2 March 2020Usage metrics
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