Beyond the Blue Banana? Structural Change in Europe’S Geo-Economy
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ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY Gert-Jan Hospers* Beyond the Blue Banana? Structural Change in Europe’s Geo-Economy For centuries, the “Blue Banana” – a banana-shaped metropolitan axis running from London to Milan – has been Europe’s breeding place for innovation and growth. Recently, however, the “Sunbelt” from Milan to Valencia and the “Yellow Banana” from Paris to Warsaw have been identifi ed as future European growth poles beside or even beyond the Blue Banana. How likely it is that the structure of Europe’s economic-geographical system will change in the next decades? n order to explore the likelihood of changes in the es of the euro therefore requires a closer inspection of Istructure of Europe’s geo-economy we shall de- Europe’s economic landscape. What, then, does a re- velop a tentative framework (“vision”) of spatial struc- cent map tell us about the economic geography of this tural change arguing that areas with sectoral and continent? Although Europe seems to be unifi ed only institutional diversity provide the fl exibility needed by its diversity, we can still detect a more or less homo- to absorb new techno-economic developments and geneous economic zone, running from London over the to develop “new combinations”. Applied to the Eu- Benelux and the Rhine area towards Milan. This axis, ropean context, the framework suggests that despite usually called the “Blue Banana”, has often been identi- its industrial tradition the Blue Banana still faces the fi ed as the area that traditionally has shown the great- most favourable future in Europe’s service economy. est development potential in Europe’s geo-economy.2 Due to its diversifi ed structure this area rather than Recently, however, commentators have suggested the Sunbelt and the Yellow Banana may have the that this long-established “stylised fact” of European best starting-position to grow in the next decades. development might be subject to structural change.3 We therefore believe that a localised European policy Some suppose that the Blue Banana eventually must of “regional realism” ultimately may help the most in give way to the “Sunbelt” an arch-shaped axis in the bringing about a less unbalanced growth of Europe’s southern part of Europe along the Mediterranean coast geo-economy. from Milan to Valencia. Others expect the rise of a “Yel- low Banana” stretching from Paris to Warsaw or even Paradoxically, the recent introduction of the euro as further into eastern Europe. Such refl ections on alleged a single European currency might be more interesting European growth areas are fascinating, but they are not for regional rather than monetary economists. The theory-based. In any case, these speculations do not fact is that member states of the EMU have lost their traditional monetary sovereignty; thus, they can no longer use exchange rates to infl uence international 1 Cf. P. Cooke (ed.): The Rise of the Rustbelt, London 1995, UCL competitiveness. Instead, nations and regions are Press; M. S torper, A.J. Scott: The wealth of regions: market forces and policy imperatives in local and global context, in: Futures, Vol. 27, increasingly thrown upon the particularities of their 1995, pp. 505-526. geo-economic structure to make a difference in the 2 See for example RECLUS: Les Villes Europeénnes: Rapport pour la single market.1 Studying the long-term consequenc- DATAR, Montpellier 1989, RECLUS; L. S chätzl (ed.): Wirtschaftsge- ographie der Europäischen Gemeinschaft, Stuttgart 1993, Uni-TB; D. Delamaide: The New Super Regions of Europe, New York 1994, Dutton. *Assistant Professor, Department of Economics and Center for Euro- pean Studies, School of Business, Public Administration and Tech- 3 Consider for instance P. K o o i j , P. P e l l enbarg (eds.): Regional nology, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands. An earlier Capitals: Past, Present, Prospects, Assen 1994, Van Gorcum; P. version of this paper was presented at the 42nd ERSA-Conference in Dicken: Global Shift: Transforming the World Economy, London 1998, Dortmund, Germany, 27-31 August 2002. The author thanks Kieran Chapman; F. E rzner (ed.): Wirtschaftsgeographie, Cornelsen 1999, P. Donaghy and Albert E. Steenge for valuable comments. Berlin. 76 Intereconomics, March/April 2003 ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY indicate what theoretical mechanisms might cause the Figure 1 stability and dynamics of Europe’s geo-economy. The Blue Banana and Beyond Against this background, the present paper is a fi rst step in the exploration of structural change in Europe’s economic geography. How likely is it that the contem- porary structure of Europe’s geographical system will change in the next decades? What are the main factors behind the long-term evolution of the European econ- omy and what is the possible impact of these factors on Europe’s economic future? Obviously, these Grand Questions, as Schumpeter would call them, cannot be answered in a paper like this one – if at all. As a mat- ter of fact, it is impossible to give fi rm answers here, since tomorrow’s geo-economic developments are al- ways surrounded by uncertainty. Therefore, we intend only to search for the main mechanisms at stake, thus hoping to contribute modestly to the development of a Schumpeterian “vision” of Europe’s changing eco- nomic geography.4 For that purpose, the remainder of the paper is organised as follows. To start with, the central region “Bananas” that have been identifi ed as core areas in metropolitan and large urban areas the European economy are discussed. After that, we other agglomerations deal briefl y with insights from Schumpeterian eco- momentum due to the opening of eastern Europe nomics, structural change theory and agglomeration periphery theory that might be useful to explore spatial structural change. Subsequently, these theoretical insights are Source: L. Schätzl (ed.): Wirtschaftsgeographie der Europäischen Gemeinschaft, Stuttgart 1993; UniTB. integrated into a preliminary framework that is used to assess the development potentials of Europe’s Europe after 1800. If anything, the Blue Banana shows Bananas. We end the paper with some implications of how long-term structures may continue to be impor- our analysis for European regional policy. tant to the present day. Beyond the Blue Banana? The Blue Banana still differs from other European locations in both demographic, economic, infrastruc- In 1989 RECLUS, a group of French geographers tural and cultural-educational aspects.7 First of all, the managed by Roger Brunet, presented a study on the Blue Banana is densely populated and highly urban- development chances of urban areas in the European ised. The area comprises many large or medium-sized economy.5 The study was meant as a warning signal cities (e.g. London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Dortmund, to the French government: since France was not Frankfurt, Basle, Zurich and Milan), in which more connected to the central growth axis from London than 40 % of the EU population (1996) lives.8 Thus, to Milan, the country might fail to grasp the benefi ts it has been described as the “city belt”, the “central from the European single market (Figure 1). It was the press that termed this core zone in Europe the “Blue 4 According to Schumpeter the formulation of such a vision before de- Banana”, thus referring to its shape and the colouring veloping a theory still makes sense as it is “... a preanalytic cognitive that was used by the RECLUS mapmakers. Before, act that supplies the raw material for the anaytical effort” (p. 54). See J. A. Schumpeter: History of Economic Analysis, London 1954, historians such as Braudel, Rokan and Tilly had al- Oxford University Press. ready identifi ed this area as the backbone of European 5 RECLUS, op.cit.; D. D e l amaide, op.cit. 6 economic development. According to them, the Blue 6 M. Heidenreich: The changing system of European cities and Banana dated back to medieval or even Roman times: regions, in: European Planning Studies, Vol. 6, 1998, pp. 315-332. it refl ected centuries-old trade routes (the Alpine- 7 Cf. L. Schätzl (ed.), op.cit.; F. E r zner (ed.), op.cit.; J.H.J. v a n Dinteren, J.A.M. Meuwissen: Business services in the core-area Rhine axis) and the borders of Roman-Catholic and of the European Union, in: Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale German-Protestant Europe. Moreover, it was along Geografi e, Vol. 85, 1994, pp. 366-370. this belt that the Industrial Revolution spread all over 8 Cf. F. Erzner (ed.), op.cit. Intereconomics, March/April 2003 77 ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY European urban region” or even the “central megapo- orthodox models structural change in time and space lis”. Moreover, statistics show that the regions within is seen as a temporary out-of-equilibrium process that the Blue Banana have higher per capita incomes and only prevents the market from reaching an optimal al- lower employment rates than the rest of Europe.9 location of factors and commodities in the long run. Besides, this zone contains large industrial concen- Having reviewed alternative economic theories we trations (for example the West Midlands and the Ruhr think that in particular three of them might help us to area) as well as strongly developed service centres, trace the main mechanisms behind the dynamics in particularly in the fi elds of business services, banking the economic-geographical system: Schumpeterian and public administration. Next, the Blue Banana has economics, structural change theory and agglom- a well-developed physical and telecommunications eration theory. Of course, we cannot discuss these infrastructure as well as dense traffi c networks. Finally, theories at length. Instead, the focus is on those very within Europe this area attracts attention because of insights that constitute the building blocks of our ten- its relatively large supply of cultural and educational tative framework of regional structural change.