Economic Geographies of the Urban System: Top-downlBottom-up Trajectories of Development and Change in Dublin 's Inner City

Introd uction Over recent decades, far-reaching economic restructuring processes have produced shifting pallem s of development and inequality with contrad ictory implications for the work and li ving conditions of people lmd communities across d ifferent regions, cities and places. The socio-spatial structure of production (manufacturi ng and service industries) has been reorgani sed radically on a globa l scale, becoming much more fl exib le, a keyword distinguishing the current phase in thecapitalisl space economy. The main shifts arc generally traced to the economic crisis o f the I 970s. a period when the post-war ' Fordist' boom came to a hal t, hit by the combined shocks of the OPEC oil crisis. economic stagnation and inflation and declining profitability in the core industrial sectors, Among other processes, capital began to ' migrate' in a highly mobile fashion, seeking a 'spatial fi x' to restore profit rates (sec, for instancc, Bluestone and Bennett, 1982. 1988 ; Scott and Storper. 1986; Castells, 1989, 1998; Massey, 1995). Facilitated by extraordinary technological progress over the same period, particularly the advances in informational and transport capacitics (e.g. widebodied cargo jets), it was possible 10 reorgan ise production lines across regional and national boundaries, decentralising more labour-intensive fu nctions to take advantage of geographic differences in labour markets. notably lower wages and the availability of a large pool of surplus labour or of more vulnerable workers (such as women, children, rural migrants, ethnic minorities, immigrants elc.). Insofar as these general processes have produced very different outcomes at different geographical points (for example the de-industrialisation of core regions . the e mergence of newly indu stri a liz ing cou ntries a nd the decpening marginalisation of the peripheral. or ' least developed' countries), this emergent economic geography can be interpreted as the manifestation of uneven development at various scales.