I begin my project of developing a citified analysis of uneven development by first explaining what I mean by it. Uneven development generally refers to the fact that the economy grows more in some places than in others. Economic performance varies across space, at different levels, from the urban to the global scale, and wealth therefore becomes geographically unequally distributed. Whereas understanding uneven development in terms of economic inequalities across space is likely to be consensual across disciplines and theoretical currents, views as to how this inequality came about differ widely. Roughly speaking, two approaches can be distinguished.

The “differentiated growth model” explains uneven development primarily as a process of spatially bound self-expansion of capital, which is why Costis Hadjimichalis (1984) refers to this view as the “autonomous or semi-autonomous development thesis”. The gist of this argument is that economic growth dynamics are geographically variegated, because they result from endogenous and therefore clearly localizable factors such as natural endowments or agglomeration economies. Because these factors are inherent to certain places but not others, growth “naturally” varies across space and inequality is the unavoidable result. Whereas economic relationships (e.g. investment, trade, migration) between the respective spatial units of analysis – mostly thought of as states, sometimes as regions or cities – are not negated by proponents of the “differentiated growth model”, they do not have a formative role in the emergence of inequality. The core idea of this approach to uneven development is therefore non-relational: states, regions or cities develop differently, but they do so due to endogenous conditions and hence by and large independently and detached from each other. Economic expansion in one place is consequently unrelated to stagnation or even contraction in another. Uneven development occurs because the more productive economies are pulling away, leaving the slower or stagnating nations, regions and cities behind. Because growth tends to beget new growth, uneven development proceeds in a self-reinforcing spiral, and economic and social asymmetries deepen over time. However, in this model, it is also conceivable that the endogenous growth factors lose strength, i.e. that former frontrunners stagnate or fall behind (for different versions of the “differentiated growth” model, see Jacobs 1970 and Storper 2013; for its policy significance, see, e.g., World Bank 2009a).