Restructuring and the Nonmetropolitan Turnaround: The California Evidence

Abstract

Conceptions of nonmetropolitan growth have rarely benefited from current debates in social theory. An analytical interpretation of the literature on the "turnaround" is offered from a structuralist perspective. In this model of industrial restructuring, the routinization of the labor process via capital intensification is seen to engender the dispersal of firms to outlying areas through the internalization of linkages. Empirical evidence from California confirms this notion, as population growth is tied to labor markets in which capital-intensive production forms are extensive. Economic base analysis indicates the rapid growth of the service sector is relatively less significant in such areas.