PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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is probably the most extreme example for this transformation. New organizational
patterns and social structures have become dependent on expanded service economies
and advanced telecommunications. The overarching theme of decision-making under
post-Fordism is clearly flexibility. Theorists researching these so-called post-Fordist
transformations of course continue to argue about the primary causes and effects of the
transformation (see especially the edited volume by Amin 1994). In the mid-1980s to
1990s, scholars variously emphasized deindustrialization (e.g. Bluestone and Harrison
1982), and the rise of service sector economies (e.g. Häußermann and Siebel 1995),
corporate restructuring (e.g. Harrison 1994), new divisions of labor (e.g. Massey 1984;
Harrison 1988; Sayer and Walker 1992), flexible specialization (Piore and Sabel 1984),
the rise of “new industrial spaces” (Scott 1988) as well as the restructuring of local land
and real estate markets (e.g. Harvey 1985; Krätke 1991). (French) regulation school
scholars particular analyze the new organizational form late Capitalism has taken by
tracing different “accumulation regimes” (Aglietta 1979; Lipietz 1986; Boyer 1990),
more recently also focusing on environmental implications of changes in labor relations,
presenting a political ecology perspective (e.g. Lipietz 1997). Lately, the key Post-
Fordism-related catch phrase is the rise of the Network, or Information Economy (see
especially Castells 1989; Castells 1996; Castells 1997; Castells 1998).
Both the post-Fordist transformation in general and the resulting reconceptualization
of time and space in particular are doubtless important concepts with
many additional dimensions relevant to the present study. For example, Amin and
Tomaney (1995:31) in their volume on the “myth” of EU cohesion, characterize the new
emerging [European] economy as a “learning economy” in which the key competitive