the industrial revolution

hearth of the industrial revolution: England

• abundance of natural resources (coal → fuel)

• government promotion of industrialization

  • private property, laissez-faire policy, let businesses operate relatively freely

  • free speech → spread of ideas

• infrastructure

  • canals, toll roads, railroads

• massive urbanization movement

  • growth of cities = boom in factory jobs = boom in productivity

  • large unskilled workforce available for low wages

industrialization

• England → Europe → United States (interrupted by Civil War) → Japan (50 years later) → South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong (post-WWII) → China (1979 start)

• spread by imperialism, slowed by tariffs

• imperialism boomed

  • need for new markets + raw materials (eg. rubber for bicycles)

  • Africa has lots of natural resources

    • infrastructure built by Europeans but built to benefit Europe → poverty in Africa, all natural resource extraction benefits Europe (exploitation)

• industrialization = power

  • exceptions of this theory: India and Brazil (increase in population, decrease in manufacturing)

growth poles

• growth pole theory posits that economic growth takes place at clusters, or “poles,” rather than being equally dispersed across a region, grouped by key industries (eg. automotive, aeronautical, agribusiness, electronics, steel) in an area

• the key industry/core industry of an area obtains goods and services from suppliers (upstream linked industries) and providing goods and services to customers (downstream linked industries)

  • these are the direct effects; indirect effects include employee demand for key industries’ goods and services

• expansion of the core industry means expansion of output, employment, related investments, new technologies, and new industrial sectors

• regional development is unequal due to scale and agglomeration economies located near the growth pole

  • the relationship will be stronger and more likely to occur if the activity is more dependent on transportation; this can lead to the creation of secondary growth poles