Some Problems of Time in Economic Geography

Abstract

Geographers have recently begun to pay more attention to the conceptualisation of time in both their theory and their empirical method. In the spirit of furthering this endeavour within the field of economic geography, I identify a number of key problems which I contend must be addressed to make an adequate treatment of time possible. These concern the infatuation with static equilibrium, common presumptions of inevitability, caricatures of fixed capital and technological change, and a general failure to incorporate uncertainty and adjustment strategies into spatial analysis. Discussion of these problems is followed by an attempt to offer a revised notion of tradition, as an important element in a truly dynamic economic geography.