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| RETHINKING ON THE PUZZLEDOM OF THE GROWTH-POLE THEORY AND INDUSTRIAL CLUSTER STRATEGY |
| WANG Zhong-zhi1,2, WANG Fu-xi1 |
1. Department of Urban and Resources Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China;
2. College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Xuzhou Normal University, Xuzhou 221116, China |
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Abstract With the decline of the Fordism and the renaissance of new regionalism,regional development pattern suggested by UNIDO has experienced changes from the growth pole model in 1960's and 1970's to the industrial cluster model in 1990's.Although its practice performance is stale,the growth pole theory has far-reaching influence in the regional development and has been generally applied in both regional and urban planning till now.
Based on industrial cluster theory,the representative idea of the new regionalism,the paper rethinks of the growth pole theory that has been existed for nearly half a century.Firstly,the paper points out that the growth pole theory has always attached so much importance to the outside force and ignored endogenesis force from region itself.Secondly,the growth pole theory regards the propulsive unit as emphases supported by government.The support ways include subsidy,protecting domestic market,holding back interior competition and foreign investment,etc,which results in the decline of enterprise competitiveness.Thirdly,the growth pole theory emphasizes the physical contact among enterprises and ignores exchange cost which has the same importance as the physical cost and ignores the dominant function that non-economic elements such as culture,criterion and institution have done during the process of industrial cluster formation.Fourthly,instead of lessening the development and welfare differences between cities and countries,the growth pole theory makes such segregate more severe.Fifthly,the growth pole theory deems that the relations of main bodies existed in industrial cluster are vertical linkage.The relation between government and enterprise is rather a hierarchy than a service relation.Enterprises have little non-commercial inter-dependence except for necessary physical input and output relation.
Finally,the paper explores the industrial cluster theory on the necessary conditions,general applicability and regional effects of its implementation and puts forward lessons from its implementation.
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Received: 23 March 2005
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2005, Vol. 20 
