Regional development aims to create jobs, improve living standards and build infrastructure in areas with low economic growth or undeveloped potential. It encompasses the process of building new economies and boosting existing ones, as well as the creation of clean energy sources and other environmental initiatives.

Increasingly, the world’s regions are becoming aware of the need to balance economic growth with environmental stewardship. This shift has led to a greater emphasis on sustainability in regional development practices, encouraging communities to adopt green technologies and invest in clean, renewable energy sources. Additionally, there is increased focus on local community involvement in development projects to ensure that they meet the needs of people in the area.

Many of these trends are in line with the approach espoused in this article, which advocates a more holistic view of regional development. This includes looking at noneconomic forces that may shape the trajectories of development, such as culture and institutions. It also includes examining the complex network of interactions between firms and their surrounding environment, which is increasingly being described as an innovation system.

In the past, this approach to regional development was largely focused on economics, and it is still an important component of two influential strands of literature, evolutionary economic geography (EEG) and regional innovation systems (RIS). However, there is growing recognition that these approaches overlook a number of key factors that can influence a region’s potential for successful development. These include power relations between different actors, and the way in which these are shaped by language (e.g., metaphors) and the ways in which those relationships are structured through networks and assemblages.