European Urban and Regional Studies

This article examines some of the main features and causes of the changing geography of inequality and unequal development in the European Union (EU). The main spatial inequalities in the EU and the wider Europe are outlined, as are some of the trends in regional inequality since the early 1960s and their relation to economic performance. Considerable emphasis is placed on evidence of the dysfunctionality of wide inequalities for economic development, and it is argued that a neo-liberal programme of market integration and an intensification of competition for investment creates a zero-sum gain in which the gains of the winners are often at the expense of the losers. An initial attempt is made to identify some of the winners and losers of the late 1970s and 1980s and to identify some of the factors that help explain why some regions were more successful than others.

The principal focus of this article is producer-related services, their growing need in enterprises and the ways in which this need is being satisfied through different transactional forms (by being internalized or externalized). This leads to a discussion of whether the substantial services growth during the early and mid-1980s was genuine or merely reflected changes of transactional forms. Growth and its regional reper cussions are analysed by uncovering how the changes were a consequence of cyclical changes, new general conditions or frames of reference (deregulation), re structuring of enterprises and the role of financial operations and transactions. Changing trends and pat terns at the start of the 1990s are then examined in the light not only of recession but also of new possible structural readjustments in production systems, and the changing role of financial institutions. Regional impacts are examined by analyses of recent data, mainly from Norway but also from other Nordic countries.

Leisure is in the vanguard of a social and cultural revolution which is replacing the former east/west political bipolarity with a globalized economic system in which the new Europe has a central role. Within this revolution, leisure, including recreation, culture and tourism, is constructed as the epitome of success ful capitalist development, the very legitimation of the global transmogrification from a production to a con sumption orientation. While acting as a direct en couragement to the political transformation in many eastern European states, it is uncertain how the issue of leisure policy is being handled, given its centrality to the new economic order. This article therefore examines the experience of western Europe, con sidering in particular the degree to which the newly created Department of National Heritage in the UK provides a potential model for leisure development and policy integration in the new Europe. Despite an official rhetoric of support and promotion of leisure activities, reflecting the growing economic significance of tourism and the positive relationship between leisure provision and regional economic development, the article establishes that in the place of the tra ditional role of the state in promoting leisure interests, the introduction of the department has sig nified a shift to the use of leisure to promote the government's interests, particularly in regenerating citizen rights claims towards the market. While an institution such as the Department of National Heri tage may have relevance to emerging states as an element in the maintenance of political hegemony, therefore, it is questionable how far it can be viewed as a promoter or protector of leisure as a signifier of a newly won political, economic and cultural freedom throughout Europe.

This article provides a framework to assist the target ing activities of European inward investment agencies (IIAs), recognizing that historically inward investment has not fulfilled the desired role of facilitating self- sustaining and innovative economic development in many European regions. While many such agencies do target their promotional programmes, the variables utilized in defining target markets have been in sufficiently directed to the real issues in economic development. Using techniques applied in industrial products' marketing, a new approach is presented, which relates the desired outputs from inward invest ment (based on a segment's level of economic impact indicators and their weighted importance) to the competitive advantages of countries and regions (based on the country's strengths and weaknesses relative to each segment's requirements). In this model, the economic impact indicators go well beyond simply employment creation to consider other employment indicators as well as trade and balance of payments and technology transfer indi cators which are critical to economic development. A matrix of appropriateness is developed which identi fies the segments that should be targeted by the par ticufar IIA based on the attractiveness of the segment and country competitive advantages. Operational considerations are reviewed and policy implications discussed.