Addressing Unevenness
This chapter argues that the role of behavioural perspectives, encompassing culture, psychology, and agency, can provide new insights into the persistence of the long-term unevenness of development across cities and regions. A psychocultural theory of development builds upon person–environment theories that have previously sought to explain ecological behaviour across cities and regions rather than their economies. In particular, it seeks to facilitate a better understanding of the connectivity between upstream and downstream explanations of urban and regional development, and indeed the extent to which such an ‘upstream–downstream’ dichotomy is valid. Such a perspective should further provide an indicator of how and why behaviour-based policy intervention may impact on urban and regional development outcomes. It is argued that it is important to understand the motivations behind such policies, with governments potentially utilizing them to achieve the aims of a range of agendas, from shrinking the state to increasing their sphere of influence through the employment of ‘psychocrats’ who shape these policies.