The evolution of uneven development and the forms of social reproduction in Greece

Abstract

Official descriptions of current uneveness in Greece emphasize the over-concentration of economic activities, population and wealth in one metropolitan region, Attica, and to a lesser degree in Thessaloniki. Following this hypothesis, proposed regional policies focus on decentralization of industry via capital incentives and tax exemptions, and via the location of large, state-owned plants in peripheral regions.

If this has been the case in the 1950's and 19603, since the mid-1970's the situation has changed considerably. Since then a de facto decentralization of both productive activities and population has taken place, challenging the dominant position of Attica. This relatively new development pattern is not unique to Greece. In other European, and specially Southern European countries, productive decentralization since the mid-1970's and the role of small and medium scale firms changed regional structures and hierarchies.

These phenomena are poorly explained by many liberal and marxist regional development approaches. Their almost exclusive attention to industrial production, to capital/labour movements, or to the «basic» formal -full time-skilled-male industrial employment- in an area, reproduces a production determinism which seems inadequate for the present period of crisis and deep restructuring. In this paper we try to develop an alternative explanation of intermediate regions and then we analyze three examples of such areas in Greece. Since our research is at an early stage, our concluding remarks have to be treated as questions to be further investigated rather than final answers to a debate that is still open.