Place-based policies for the future

This paper reviews the nature of, and case for, modern case for place-based policies. In order to do this, we examine how the thinking about place-based policies has developed over time in the context of the changes experienced in the economies of advanced economies over recent decades. To understand the case for place-based policies and the contexts in which they may be needed, it is essential to understand the longstanding arguments which have been put forward against place-based policies, framed via a purported dichotomy between ‘place prosperity versus people prosperity’. On the basis of sixty years of thinking, this paper demonstrates that this dichotomous narrative is almost entirely illusory, conceptually, analytically, and empirically, and has unhelpfully distorted thinking about regional development issues. This six-decade long examination allows us to articulate more clearly the conceptual underpinnings of place-based policies, and to identify the contexts in which such approaches are meaningful. Today the underlying dynamics of modern interregional systems have changed profoundly, and the OECD-wide shift from convergence to divergence demonstrates that the conceptual and practical insights of place-based policies are needed more than ever