Regional futures: Industrial restructuring, new high volume production concepts and spatial development strategies in the new Europe

The last two decades have seen an increasing concern to reorganize production processes and experiment with a variety of alternatives to mass production. This paper examines one subset of these new approaches, namely those concerned with discovering new feasible methods of high volume production. These processes of experimentation with new ways of producing and of industrial restructuring more generally have had diverse regional development implications. They have reinforced the position of some of Europe's economically strong regions; offered new growth opportunities in others; and triggered precipitate decline elsewhere. The paper explores the implications of these changes for spatial policies and for the future map of regional inequality in Europe.