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Economic development zone (EDZ) is a spatial policy and experimental strategy for stimulating economic growth. Even though its roots are ancient, it is only in recent decades that EDZ has emerged as a powerful global form. Zoning technologies, as a compromise between liberal and protective regimes, can be seen as the state's intention to cope with the emerging opportunities and pressures of internationalization by redefining its territory, border, and sovereignty. However, the restructuring process incurs social and spatial tensions, since that zoning policy also implies differentiating the treatment of land and people. Situated in changing political‐economic climates, EDZs, on the one hand, extend to cover as far as possible, through networking, the subcontracted fragments of the national territory, and, on the other hand, become part of the assemblage of a globalizing world.

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“New industrial space” describes the agglomeration of specialized firms flexibly coordinated to enjoy the reduction of transaction costs. In contrast to the existing industrial system of mass production, it is characterized by vertically disintegrated firms engaging in batch production, the interdependency between firms, and the emergence of informal, contract‐based or self‐employed workers. In the late 1970s and 1980s, this new form of production took place in various parts of the world, such as the Third Italy, Silicon Valley, and the clustering of high‐tech firms in Paris's southern suburb. This thesis posits a strong attempt to embed economic relations into a deeper social fabric, emphasizing flexible firm boundaries, cooperative competition, and the importance of trust in the formation and reproduction of industrial districts. However, this territorial‐inclined proposition drew concerns from some critics who questioned whether global forces were well considered. It was also criticized for being ignorant of the role of states, multinational corporations, and other institutions such as nongovernmental organizations. More importantly, with the rise of the service sector and cultural economy since 1990s, the explanatory limitations of the concept of new industrial space were further explored and recognized.

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