Spatial Divisions of Labour in Britain

Abstract

Both the regional geography of the UK and the way in which we analyse it have been undergoing profound changes over the last two decades. In many ways the two things have been linked. Changes in the geography of employment posed questions which our old theories of industrial location and of regional inequality were quite incapable of answering. In this chapter, therefore, we are going to explore both sets of changes, albeit very briefly, and use an account of changes in Britain’s industrial geography to highlight some of the ways in which analysis itself has been transformed. We begin, however, by enumerating some of the most important ways in which the analysis of industrial geography and of regional employment patterns have been developing.