HENRI LEFEBVRE: SPACE, TIME, AND CHANGES IN THE REGIONAL ECONOMY
Abstract : This paper emphasizes Lefebvre’s interpretation of relational space as a social construct that enabled a ”spatial turn” in the social sciences in the late 1960s. This is evidenced by his most important essays and books (1968, 1991, 2003) on space, the results of which have been transposed into other disciplines, as evidenced by works from a wide range of social sciences, from geography (Harvey, 1973; Soja, 1989; Peet, 1998; Dear, 2000; Elden, 2004; Castree, 2004; Shields, 2011; Gregory, 2015), spatial planning, urbanism and urban studies (Kipfer, 2008; Goonewardena, 2008) to economics (Berend, 2009; Nijkamp, ​​2012, Capello, 2016, Suwala, 2021). This led to theoretical bases for new disciplinary directions in geography (radical and postmodern geography) and regional economy by introducing a new classification of relational space (diverse-stylized and diverse-relational). Understanding this epistemological transition is possible through different concepts of space and absolute, relative, relational. Broader ontological reasoning is needed, and this has been provided by numerous theorists, such as sociologists (Blaas and Foster, 1992; Schmidt, 2008) to philosophers and social theorists (Bachelard, 1969; Foucault, 1984; Prigge, 2008; Cusset, 2015; Knoblauch and Löw, 2017). In this way, the theory of the social production of space became widely accepted. Still, the ideological component of that concept (material social practice as a Marxist thesis) became the antithesis of the emerging poststructuralist antithesis (fragmentation of socio-cultural issue of nations, through cultural studies, into numerous identity micro groups) led to a neoliberal synthesis (privatization and deregulation of the market, to strengthen the role of financial capital in socio-economic relations).
Keywords : Lefebvre, regional economy, space production, geographical space, economic space.
1. INTRODUCTION
About other social sciences, space was later discussed from an economic point of view. Therefore, several reasons can be related to the founder of the regional economy, Walter Isard. First, he pointed out the decisive influence of the neoclassical school, which started the temporal analysis of economic development as crucial while neglecting the space variable consequently for simplification. Isard confirmed this in the views of Alfred Marshall (1920: 286), who considered that the difficulties of a problem mainly depend on variations in ​​space and time in which the market in question extends; the influence of time is more fundamental than space.” The second reason was explained by R. Capello (2016: 2) through the relationship of this variable (space) in economic analysis, which can ”complicate the logical framework.” She sees the reasons for that in analytical tools, which until recently could not simultaneously deal with temporal and spatial dynamics ”nor could they cope with the appearance of nonlinearities of space, such as agglomerations or the economy of proximity.” This led to the introduction of this variable (space), which required ”the rejection of the simplifying hypotheses of constant yields and perfect competition.” According to economic logic, the market is spatially divided among producers, and some companies do not compete with all companies but only with the closest ones. It follows that spatial distance is an obstacle to market entry, and it, therefore, emphasizes that the regional economy is trying to answer the following fundamental questions:
• What economic logic explains the location of companies and households in the area?
• What economic logic explains the configuration of large territorial systems (e.g., urban systems)?
• Why are certain areas - regions, cities, individual territories - more developed than others?
Capello states that the answers to these questions are given by two large groups of theories, which make up the regional economy:
• Location theory, as the oldest branch of the regional economy, deals with economic mechanisms that distribute activities in space. • Theory of regional growth (and development) focuses on the spatial aspects of economic growth and territorial income distribution.
The answers to these questions, which define the theoretical assumptions of economic geography and regional economy, imply a previous clarification of the geographical meaning of the term space, then a ”spatial turn” in the social sciences, and only then, as the most complex, economic aspect of the term space.
2. GEOGRAPHICAL SPACE
The epistemological basis of geography is broken through the notion of space because geographical knowledge has always been based on understanding space and its cartographic representation. The expansion of this knowledge depended on the applicability of various innovations, which led to new concepts of space. During the historical development of geography, the notion of space has been modified by specific links between ”power, knowledge, and geography.” According to Gregory et al. (2015: 2), XIX c. was an age dominated by ”time” while the XX century. Marked ”space,” during which ”modern” became ”postmodern.” This is marked as a ”spatial turn” in a wide range of humanities and social sciences, with the ”conceptualization of space” being a watershed between geographical directions.
The contribution to the scientific foundation of modern geography was marked by the concept of space, which developed along the historical vertical: Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, and Kant. From the point of view of geographers, Humboldt and Hettner expanded the theoretical conception of the term ”absolute space” and thus modern geography, and the final form was given to it by Hartshorne (1939) by introducing the term ”spatial differentiation.” The concept of space and its philosophical interpretation will become the basis for developing different geographical views of reality in the second half of the twentieth century when there were two more changes in the concept of space, which also represented divisions within geography. Schaefer (1959) began a quantitative revolution in geography (the idea of relative space) as the theoretical basis for the new geography. A more complex geometry was needed to clarify the new concept of space, which introduced the process of abstraction into the spatial analysis (basic methodological procedure) as a precondition for the transition from ”physical” to ”mathematical” space. During this phase in the development of scientific geography, the antagonistic relationship between the concepts of space and regional tradition will appear when space is artificially separated from the natural environment. Peet (1998: 32-33) emphasizes that a kind of crisis of the identity of geography arose from this and because of its complexity (natural and social science).
Table 1: Conceptualization of space and development of scientific geography