Uncertainty, location and regional economic growth

Abstract

Economic activity is unevenly distributed over space. Population, income and productive assets are largely concentrated in a few nations; within a nation, one or a few regions usually predominate; and a few cities and towns normally contain much of the productive assets and activity of a region. The immediate and most important task of location theory is therefore to provide reasons why activity is spatially concentrated. The causes adduced to explain the existence of areas of intense activity are then used as frameworks within which theory analyses the location of these concentrations, their size, and the activities present within them. The discussion of location theory in this chapter consequently centres on theories of the existence of concentrations of economic activity.