A Comparative Study on the Changing Regional Structures in the Advanced Capitalist Countries

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About 25 years have passed since a new approach to regional problems, the so-called "Chiiki-Kozo-Ron" or Regional Structure Approach, was established by some Japanese economic geographers in the early 1970s. This approach is distinguished by its dynamic analysis of regional and urban systems within the national economy from the viewpoint of the capitalist reproduction structure, and by its articulation of locational strategies of large enterprises that play a pivotal role in the changes of regional structures. Numbers of empirical studies have revealed the locational dynamics of the leading industries and the characteristics of the regional structure in each industrialized country. As for the new development of this approach, international comparison on the changes in regional structures is one of the important subjects.In this research project, we have seen that the evolution of advanced capitalism and the emergence of an informational economy have led to a significant reorganization of the economic geography of places and regions throughout the developed world. This reorganization has modified many of the core-periphery patterns of regional development associated with industrial capitalism. Yet core-periphery patterns and regional economic disparities, such as North-South divide in Britain, East-West divide in Germany, and Snowbelt vs Sunbelt in the USA, have by no means disappeared. Rather, they have been reconfigured and intensified. Core regions within developed countries have typically been centered on urban-industrial heartlands, but have recently been modified by the geography of service activities, particularly business services, and by the imprint of the new spatial divisions of labor associated with globalization, decentralization, and agglomeration.