Services and the UK Space Economy: Regionalization and Economic Dislocation

This paper is an attempt to break with a certain way of thinking about the role of services in a modem economy. It is argued that an economic discourse which stresses the relationship between services and manufacturing within the framework of a national economy has restricted our ability to think about services as a catalyst of growth, especially in relation to other services and international service 'flows'. An alternative framework is proposed which talks about regional modes of growth in a manner which avoids direct reference to a national economy and the implicit notion that they are driven by some kind of internal dynamic, usually manufacturing based. A contemporary example of a regionalized mode of service growth which spread across London and parts of the south of the country, though little further, is outlined. It is also suggested that the impact of neo-liberal political strategies in the 1980s had the unanticipated effect of defining this mode of growth in a sharper geographical form, brought about in part by a succession of economic dislocations.