Uneven regional and national development: Italy, the UK and China

Michael Dunford

Chapter 9 in Rethinking Uneven Development, 2026, pp 237-273 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter concentrates mainly on individual countries and intra-national scales of analysis. In the cases of Italy and the UK, the narrowing of disparities in the Golden Age and their widening in the neoliberal era are documented and connected with structural transformations: mass migration and industrial investment in the Mezzogiorno (Southern Italy); the growth of industrial districts outside of large metropolitan areas that led to the identification of Three Italies; deindustrialisation and the emergence of a low-productivity service economy in the UK, with adverse consequences for livelihoods; dependence of the UK economy on the international financial and commercial role of the City of London; and the divided character of global cities. In the Chinese case, emphasis is placed on successive reforms that were designed to move forward while addressing the crises and contradictions arising in previous phases of development. Attention is paid to successive economic development strategies and some of the consequences for inequality: increases in an era where some people and places were allowed to get rich first, and decreases in more recent years. The contemporary quest for a new non-Western modernisation path is also outlined.

Keywords: North–South Divides; Convergence and Divergence; Mezzogiorno; Industrial Districts; Deindustrialisation; Global Cities; Chinese Modernisation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035352968
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