The Triumph of the Placeless

Abstract

Although three centuries of industrialisation and growth have led to unimaginably better lives for most people, economic and health outcomes differ widely across places, both between and within polities. We suggest that understanding these differences requires considering the role of ‘placeless’ agents in shaping places – here, subnational regions. Prior economic development and globalisation have rewarded and empowered placeless agents: firms, people and institutions which rely for wellbeing, identity and profits not on a specific place, but rather on a type or types of place. Their mobility and lack of embeddedness means interactions with specific places is functionally narrow, voluntary, self-interested, and hence potentially problematic for embedded actors, and for the health and viability of the places within which they operate. We look to operationalise this concept by developing notions of economic, socio-cultural and civic placelessness, and reflect on how the power of the placeless may shape local responses to critical challenges.

Cymru Yfory: Incrementalism or Transformation for the Regional Economy?

“…Wales has long had a reputation as a communitarian polity, comprised of highly interlinked communities, embedded in their Cynefin. 13 The extent to which the functioning of these communities is challenged by non-local and "placeless" actors 14 which hold dominant market power -thus enabling the appropriation of land, housing and natural resources important to places and to Welsh cultures-has (perhaps belatedly) begun to inform Government, municipal and public agencies' policy in Wales. Whilst the Welsh Government has inaugurated policies that seek to rebalance economic equations in favour of the local, and where local resources are exploited, to capture a greater share of resultant economic benefits for Wales, also notable is the wider desire to protect and reclaim place names in Cymraeg, resulting in the re-(or rather) un-branding of Welsh mountains and national parks back to the original.…”

“…It is, however, notable as a deliberate intervention to rebalance the economic equation away from non-locals and the "placeless", and towards the embedded people and communities that have often lost out from globalisation. 23 Whilst the prioritisation of "locals" in housing and planning processes is extant in various contexts, 24 this intervention -in the private Cymru Yfory: Incrementalism or Transformation for the Regional Economy?…”