Places that don’t matter? Socio-economic transformation of industrial towns in Switzerland and Slovenia

The industrial sector accounts for a large share of employment in small and medium-sized towns (SMSTs) (see Kotzeva et al., 2016). The academic literature tends, however, to focus on industrial transformation in well-performing regions and large urban centres; making policy recommendations derived from such “best-practice models” ill-adapted to SMSTs’ contexts (see Florida et al., 2017; Miörner & Trippl, 2019). Researchers are increasingly interested in SMSTs to provide policymakers with contextualised place-based policies (see Servillo et al., 2014). Additional research must be conducted to understand how industrial and socio-economic transformation plays out in SMSTs. Using a comparative approach, we examine industrial and socio-institutional transformation in six industrial towns in Switzerland and Slovenia. The research methodology is based on in-depth comparative case-study approaches and participatory workshops to identify the processes behind industrial and socio-institutional transformation in SMSTs. The research project will attempt to provide an explanation to favour community-level responses when tackling industrial and socio-institutional transformation and mitigate increasing populist resentment from citizens in SMSTs who “feel that they don’t matter” compared with citizens in large urban centres (Rodríguez-Pose, 2018).

Picture: Methodological framework of the project (click on for picture)