Regional autonomy in the global economy is a myth: regional economies and regional fortunes are shaped by a transational firm agenda to drive down costs while accessing skilled, flexible labor in and across regions.

Winner of the 2009 Regional Studies Association Best Book Award

Since the early 1980s, the region has been central to thinking about the emerging character of the global economy. In fields as diverse as business management, industrial relations, economic geography, sociology, and planning, the regional scale has emerged as an organizing concept for interpretations of economic change.

This book is both a critique of the "new regionalism" and a return to the "regional question," including all of its concerns with equity and uneven...