A systematic perspective on local development.

In his contribution Sergio Conti develops a systemic perspective on local development. He elaborates the notion on ‘local development’, which is represented as a ‘synthetic concept’ that integrates several concepts in economic geography – such as clusters, industrial district and learning region – that have been dominant for some time now. His aim is to rediscover the role of external relations (and thus agglomeration) as a factor of cooperation and collective learning. In his contribution, Conti builds on theories of complexity, in order to show that systems consist of subsystems that interact through a large, if not infinite number of relations and dimensions.