Polos de crecimiento: ¿están muertos?

Abstract

In the essay Growth Poles: are they dead?, Sergio Boisier points out the decreasing interest observed -in international seminars as well as in the english and spanish specialized literature- on growth pole theory as the basis for regional development strategies. In spite of this, the author sustains that this theory is still strongly influencing both, current regional development strategies and academic discussion in the field. In the light og these observations the purpose of the article is to present a synthesized review of the state of the art on growth pole theory and to inquire about today's relevance for the theory. In relation to the later question his conclusion is that growth pole theory in practice is not dead but that undoubtedly has experimented deep metamorphosis. The review of the theory lead to raise the following conclusions: a) as far as present development styles continue alive it seems that there are no clear alternatives to formulate regional development strategies based on other foundations than polarized development; b) polarized development theory contains ideological elements which are congruent with such styles. However, from the point of view of its translation to policies or strategies, those elements have only a relative weight; c) the implementation of classical versions of polarized development strategies -based in a sole activity- can only be applied in regions with diversified economic structures; d) in all other cases a strategy of polarized development should involve the introduction of an activities-matrix in the region; and e) in all cases the confrontation between the inductive effects of the pole and the inter-industrial regional structure constitutes a key element of both theory and strategy.