The role of geography in development

This article assesses how the tension between centripetal forces (such as f orward and backward linkages in production and increasing returns in transp ortation) and centrifugal forces (such as factor immobility and land rents) can produce a process of self-organization in which symmetric locations en d up playing very different economic roles. The article discusses geographi c models of the division of the world into industrial and developing countr ies, of the emergence of regional inequality within developing countries, a nd of the emergence of giant urban centers. It argues that the conflict bet ween "predestination" and "self-organizing" approaches to economic geograph y may be more apparent than real and briefly discusses policy-mainly in ter ms of why it is so hard to draw policy conclusions from economic geography models.