Retreat from the Regions - Stephen

Multi-plant companies are the dominant component of most regional economies. For much of the post-war period such companies enjoyed unprecedented expansion, but for more than a decade now they have been involved in major restructuring, leading to the closure of factories and to redundancy for thousands of workers. As a result, some localities have been plunged into a recession from which they have not recovered.;The book explores two crucial questions. Firstly, the reasons why a company finds that it needs to close a factory, and secondly, how it decides exactly which of its factories to close.;This book places branch closures within the context of wider debates about the nature of industrial change in the last part of the century, including the impact of new technology and working practices, the internationalization of production and de-industrialization. It considers discussions about appropriate policies for assisting in the economic development of lagging regions, including the role of possible new branch factories and the sorts of initiatives needed to retain and up-grade the jobs in existing branches.