Life cycles, contingency, and agency: growth, development, and change in English industrial districts and clusters

Responding to a recent special issue of <i>Environment and Planning A</i> on decline in mature industrial regions, the paper summarises and presents recent historical work on English industrial districts and regions. The paper argues that historical methods, informed by cognate social sciences, allow us to place the concepts of contingency and lock-in on a firmer footing. The paper presents a nondeterministic life-cycle model of industrial districts.