Decline of the District, Renewal of Firms: An Evolutionary Approach to Footwear Production in the Pirmasens Area, Germany

Eike W Schamp
Additional contact information
Eike W Schamp: Department of Economic and Social Geography, Goethe University Frankfurt/Main, Dante-Strasse 9, D-60054, Frankfurt/Main, Germany

Environment and Planning A, 2005, vol. 37, issue 4, 617-634

Abstract: Among the variety of old industrial areas, districts involved in the production of light consumer goods are a special case. Taking the single still-surviving footwear-production district in Germany as an example, the author makes an attempt to reflect on the long-term decline of an industrial district and the resulting path dependency of regional development. An evolutionary approach is taken which starts from different institutional bases and reveals a complex mix of temporalities and spatialities in the development path of enterprises and the region. The major empirical findings contrast two dominant types of strategic response to decline: firms either stayed in the industry, but left the region; or stayed in the region, but left the industry. The author concludes by mapping implications for territorial development.

Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a36275 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:37:y:2005:i:4:p:617-634

DOI: 10.1068/a36275

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment and Planning A
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().