Forms of Emergence and the Evolution of Economic Landscapes

Over the past two decades, the notion of ÔemergenceÕ has attracted increasing attention and controversy across the social sciences, as par of a growing interest in the applicability of complexity theory to socio-economic-political systems. Within this context, as economic geographers, our concern in this paper is with the usefulness of the idea of emergence for studying the economic landscape and its evolution. We examine three ÔordersÕ of emergence, and focus attention especially on the third type, Ôdevelopmental or evolutionaryÕ emergence. Despite its limitations, the notion of third order emergence is a potentially valuable organizing concept in economic geography. It provides a framework for exploring how it is that the spatial forms of the economy - clusters, regions, firm networks and so on Ð are recursively related to economic action.