The exaggerated death of geography: learning, proximity and territorial innovation systems

Abstract

Globalization and digitalization have been presented as ineluctable forces which signal the ‘death of geography’. The paper takes issue with this fashionable narrative. The argument that ‘geography matters’ is pursued in three ways: first, by questioning the ‘distance-destroying’ capacity of information and communication technologies where social depth is conflated with spatial reach; second, by arguing that physical proximity may be essential for some forms of knowledge exchange; and third, by charting the growth of territorial innovation systems.