“A major contribution to both regional science and modern social science. This book treats in an integrated way the major themes of regional economics: industrial districts, urbanization, and globalization. The approach is interdisciplinary, and the author succeeds in bringing together in his own original theoretical framework major elements from the most up-to-date theoretical debates in economics and sociology....The book will certainly become a classic among regional economists, and it has much to offer to anyone interested in what is going on in the social sciences in our time.”

—Bengt-Aake Lundvall, Department of Business Studies, Aalborg University, Denmark


“This is a path-breaking book written by one of our most prominent economic geographers. It offers a novel and compelling theorization of why regions continue to matter in a global age. In conceptualizing the region, inter alia, as a nexus of untraded interdependencies, Michael Storper forces recognition of the decisive influence upon economic competitiveness, innovation and adaptability, of the social relations of proximity such as sedimented actor rationalities, local knowledge and learning environments, social and cultural conventions, and industrial and institutional legacies. His approach considerably advances regional theory beyond the recent rediscovery of external economies of agglomeration within economics. It paves the way for a new institutionalist and evolutionary paradigm in regional development studies.”

—Ash Amin, Professor of Geography, University of Durham, UK