The strategic management of core cities: Path dependence and economic adjustment in resilient regions

The evolutionary approach to economics hypothesizes that economies change in path-dependent ways, shaped and constrained by past decisions, chance events and accidents of history. These constraints make certain strategies easier to pursue and others less so. Resilient regions engage in collaborative processes to plan and implement change, within the constraints endowed by their existing regional assets, including public and private research infrastructure, and the infrastructure of regional institutions. This paper explores the way these processes have played out in a two core cities in the province of Ontario, Ottawa and Waterloo, over the past decade in response to two major external shocks.