Reinventing Eibar, c. 1700-2019. Resilience, agency and path-development in an old industrial city

The paper, that aims to mix the long-term vision of the economic historians with the territorial approach and theoretical framework of evolutionary economic geography, presents an exploratory longitudinal in-depth case study of an old industrial city in the Basque region of Spain, trying to analyze its resilience towards the shocks and disturbances experienced over time, the development paths followed and the role of agency and actors in the whole process. The paper identifies the main shocks and disturbances experienced by the city since the late 18th century, sets up the main development paths and, building on a typology of resilience mechanisms and actors and agency involved, attempts to measure its relative importance across the different paths. Like in other old industrial cities of Europe, resilience and path development are explained by a combination of economic structure, institutions and agency.