ABSTRACT
Theory in sociology and economics is often constructed as if social life transpired in a spatial vacuum. Time and history rather than space and geography have tended to shape our views of the social world. Classical economic and early Marxist perspectives centered on the uniformity of the development process and assumed that spatial differences among localities, regions, and nations would deteriorate as capitalism progressed. Hence, there was little interest in understanding how the peculiarities of place were related to wider economic transformations. Much contemporary theory, including general theories of inequality and stratification (Collins 1974; Wright 1978; Poulantzas 1975) and sociological/economic perspectives on industrial structure (Averitt 1968; Hodson 1978, 1983; Doeringer and Piore 1971), centers on individuals, social classes, occupations, firms, and industries, independent of their location. Yet social relations are inextricably tied to a spatial context and cannot fully be understood without reference to this context. As others have succinctly put it, “space makes a difference” (Savage et al. 1987: 30).
