Hans Westlund (p)

While openness vs. closure can be considered a long term cyclical phenomenon, another spatial feature seems to be a more permanent trend: the growth of multi-nuclei city-regions, which embrace large areas of countryside – and as they neither are solely urban nor solely rural regions they can be labelled “post-urban regions”. Across the world, these regions have become hubs between the world market and national markets. If the global forces are restricted, what will this mean for the grand city-regions that we usually think are the future of the world?

Raquel Ortega-Argilés (p)

Recent studies have shown that regional inequality is not necessarily associated with higher economic growth. On the other hand, there are arguments which would suggest that more equal economies display higher levels of resilience to shocks and greater inclusivity and sustainability. In this talk, and with the notion of the penalty of bottlenecks, I argue that it is possible to develop a more systemic understanding of regional development which better takes account of the relationships between inequality, resilience and growth.