On the significance of geographical space: reply to Smith.

With the expansion and transformation of capitalism, the organization and structure of economy, polity and society can take on, at different spatial scales, new, distinctive and highly conspicuous forms. Changes in spatial structure can be readily demonstrated empirically as the outcome, in part at least, of the dynamics of capital accumulation and class struggle. What is much more difficult, and where considerable controversy is to be found, is in theorizing how, under capitalism, the various relationships between unevenness, space and development may be conceptualized. These difficulties and controversies are especially apparent in the Anglo-American development literature, where there has been a revived interest in the formulation of a theoretical understanding of uneven regional development, notably under the auspices of the restructuring of capital, in advanced capitalist nations. In this literature the approaches adopted in the interpretation of those forces thought to be responsible for the creation and perpetuation of uneven regional development have embraced neoclassical economics, dependency paradigm perspectives on development and underdevelopment, and more recent efforts to transform or to transcend neo-Marxist structuralism. These various approaches are distinctive in the significance they attach to spatial structure.