Key points
- Storper studies how the global economy and territorial development interact.
- Globalisation has intensified competition between regions and specialisation around local strengths.
- Regional worlds of production organise the economy around territorial specialisations.
In The Regional World: Territorial Development in a Global Economy (1997), Michael Storper, an economic geographer at UCLA and the London School of Economics, explores the interaction between the global economy and the development of territories. His central idea is that, despite globalisation, regions keep a crucial relevance as engines of growth: regional economies do not depend only on external factors but on local characteristics — institutions, culture, innovation networks — that create competitive advantages hard to replicate elsewhere.
Competition and regional specialisation
Storper argues that globalisation has intensified competition between regions and produced a process of economic specialisation based on local strengths. But the process is not uniform and regions do not receive the same benefits: some become centres of production and technology while others are left on the margins. The result is major disparities in regional development, with economies that prosper and economies that stagnate or decline, sometimes a few kilometres apart.
Regional worlds of production
His best-known concept is that of regional worlds of production, which describes how economic dynamics organise around territorial specialisations. Comparing technology districts in France, Italy and the United States, Storper shows that local conventions and learning networks are decisive for innovation: a region's success does not depend only on investment in infrastructure or technology but on the capacity of its communities to organise around shared values and collaborate on collective projects. What a place knows how to do, and how it coordinates, does not export easily.
Globalisation and territoriality
One of the tensions he highlights is the relationship between globalisation and territoriality. Although the global economy has lowered barriers to trade and communication, regions still matter because of the cultural, social and political particularities that shape economic development. Globalisation does not homogenise economies: it reinforces territorial differences by rewarding regions able to adapt and prosper in a competitive global environment, and punishing those that cannot.
The role of public policy
Storper also addresses the role of public policy. Local and regional governments must play an active role in creating an environment favourable to innovation and growth, because without appropriate intervention globalisation deepens the existing inequalities between regions. Policymakers must design strategies that build on local strengths and mitigate the negative effects of global competition, and that requires knowing the territory before copying recipes.
The Regional World offers a detailed view of how global economic forces interact with local characteristics to shape regional development. It underlines the importance of local institutions, innovation networks and public policy in creating prosperous regions, and warns of growing territorial inequality in an ever more globalised world. For urbanism, its lesson is that the city competes with its region, not alone.
Frequently asked questions
What are regional worlds of production?
Michael Storper's concept for how economic dynamics organise around regional specialisations: sets of firms, know-how, institutions and conventions that make a region produce in a specific way that is hard to copy. They are why geography still matters in a global economy.
Why do regions still matter under globalisation?
Because even though the global economy has lowered barriers to trade and communication, the cultural, social and political particularities of each region shape how it produces and innovates. Storper argues that globalisation does not erase territory; it makes it more decisive.
