Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T20:10:38.435Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Core–Periphery Relations in the European Union and the Role of Central Places in Europe with a Focus on Regional Policy in Britain and Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2013

Bennett C. Thomas*
Affiliation:
1604 21st Avenue NE, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2M 1M. E-mail: bennettct@yahoo.com

Abstract

Core–periphery analysis is vital to an understanding of the European Union (EU) and regional development. The European Economic Community (EEC), which would eventually become the EU, was formed in 1957 in order to promote progressive economic integration. Recognizing that there were depressed regions within both peripheral and core nation-states, the EC adopted a programme with the goal of bringing those regions into convergence. Its programme is essentially a liberal centre–periphery model similar to the one proposed by Friedman. Many of the nation-states within the EC also have their own regional policies and programmes regarding intervention within their own spatial boundaries. To present an approach for comparison this article will focus on two examples of regional policy: Britain's attitude toward regional development in the North and the German programme for integrating East Germany.

Type
Focus: Core–Periphery
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Knox, P. and Agnew, J. (1994) The Geography of the World Economy: An Introduction to Economic Geography, 2nd edn (London: Edward Arnold).Google Scholar
2.Christaller, W. (1966) Central Places in Southern Germany (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall).Google Scholar
3.Peck, J. A. and Tickell, A. (1992) Local modes of social regulation? Regulation theory. Thatcherism and uneven development. Geoforum, 23(3), pp. 347363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4.Wild, T. (1992) From division to unification: Regional dimensions of economic change in Germany. Geography, 77(3), pp. 244260.Google Scholar
5.K. Vivian (1992) Storm and stress. In: Vivian, K. (ed.) A Concise History of German Literature to 1900 (Columbia, SC: Camden House), p. 141.Google Scholar
6.McDonald, J. R. (1992) The European Scene: A Geographic Perspective (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall).Google Scholar
7.Scott, D. (1991) Regional policy and planning in South West Germany. Geoforum, 22(3), pp. 287298.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8.Fisher, J. S. (Ed.) (1992) Geography and Development: A World Regional Approach, 4th edn (New York: Macmillan).Google Scholar

A correction has been issued for this article: