Overview
This book is about the analysis of regional economic performance and change, and how analysis integrates with strategies for local and regional economic development policy and planning. The book is not about the theory of regional economic development, although it provides the reader with an overview of key theoretical and conceptual contexts within which the economic development process takes place. Rather, the deliberate emphasis is to provide the reader with an account of quantitative and qualitative approaches to regional economic analysis and of old and new strategic frameworks for formulating regional economic development planning. This is done within the context of the evolution of society from the industrial to the post-industrial era in which contemporary forces of globalization and economic restructuring are creating increasing interdependence, rapid change, and high levels of uncertainty and risk for regions at all levels of scale.