Tradition and innovation in coastal Finland: The transformation of the Archipelago Sea Region

This paper deals with the demographic and socio-economic development in the Archipelago Sea Region in southwestern Finland in recent decades. The most important finding is that the region has fared rather well during recent d ecades, even during the first half of the 1990s, when the rest of Finland w as hit by a severe economic crisis. Two factors seem to have influenced the relatively favourable development in the archipelago. On the one hand, the region has specific cultural, social and economic traditions that have ena bled it to adapt to new challenges; and on the other hand, certain welfare, regional and other policies seem to have favoured the region to some exten t. A general conclusion from the study is that there is a need for a broade r theory of rural development than those theories currently being used. The most important feature of such a theory would be its use in providing gene ral interpretations of regional development, even if each region has comple tely different economic foundations and its own development logic.