What is Meant by The Term Core and Periphery?

Wealth is never evenly spread in a region; it tends to be concentrated in certain areas. The core forms an area of a country or region which is the most prosperous and developed. It is likely to contain the capital city (eg the south east of England and London). It will have good communications and be in a good position to trade with markets on a larger scale. This could be via a port of by position relative to other cores in other regions.

Major industries will be found in this area along with the highest amount of services and investment.

The further away from the core the cheaper land prices are and less investment and industry are found. This eventually turns into the periphery. Although there is no defined line between the two areas the differences are obvious. In the periphery there are fewer jobs and wealth, development and the standard of living all decrease as they move away from the core.

The periphery if often a lot larger than the core. Evaluate the view that development of the core is always at the expense of the periphery.

This view is strongly related a common point made that an area (the core) tends to take development away from other areas in its region. The single word that makes this view almost certainly invalid is always. It is stating that in 100% of cases the core development is in expense of its surrounding area. According to J Friedmans model of economic development in a region during it second stage a single core takes resources from its surrounding area such as man power, minerals or materials.

However in his third stage the periphery although not as economically important as the original core begins to be invested in and in turn begin to develop thanks to capital made in the core needing to expand and new investments in new area means that the periphery becomes strong. For example 20th century Brazil moved its concentrated economic activity from its south east region whilst heading further north and to the west saw a huge decrease of development. In 1952 the congress in an attempt to spread the development and wealth created a new capital city 1000km inland.

This city Brasilia has attracted 2 million inhabitants although little non administatrated industry has been attracted there. Also in 1975 the government aided by multinational companies invested in 15 isolated regions which created jobs and increased national wealth but at the cost of much rainforest. In this example the original core was continually growing throughout last century but also many regions of the periphery were becoming secondary cores in their own right without having to sacrifice other areas of the periphery.

If that was any area at an expense then it was the south east as investment had been taken away from their, to put into other regions. This slightly contradicts the view in the fact that the periphery did not lose any resources for the good of the core in fact it was quite the opposite. To read this question from an alternative angle we could show how a core can really grow and if these factors do not detract from its periphery then the evaluation of the view can be too little effect. The core attracts new industries and services which invest in the area because they believe their business will profit from its location.

This is because its location it’s among other businesses so trade is easy and the ample amount of people mean that its amount of customers is higher than it would be anywhere else. This is not removing anything from the periphery but merely adding to the standard of living and services in the periphery. However with more capital it will create more pull factors that will encourage rural migration into the core so labour will be lost along with taxes etc. Therefore jobs in the periphery will be relatively few, low paid and mainly in the primary sector.

This is due to government investment, outside investment and services will be limited. These push factors will sometimes force people to migrate towards the core. A continuous circle unless investment is spread into the periphery which if the core continues expanding will eventually happen in the periphery area because of physical space. During the last century the UK has become a divided country. As the country developed leaving certain industries behind and creating new ones. These old industries were often found in the north east of England such as mining and ship building.

As these industries either were more popular from else where (ship building in the Middle East became cheaper, quicker and more accessible) or were not in popular demand (coal). As these dominated the labour and the scenery in the north east it meant for new industry to be successful it would cost a lot to clear the area and is why much investment went to the south east along with many of the jobs. More recently the government is trying to revitalise the north by encouraging investment from large multinational companies and hoping that that will kick start another core arising in the north.

In this case the core was expanding because of the change in technology which was also the cause of the decline in the north. In conclusion the result of an expansion in the core and a decline in the periphery are often linked together. However this link is often not direct, an outside factor will often be needed for this link to be made. For instance an investor or a change in technology. But it is possible with the correct government for both areas to prosper but requires much time and money.