Culture and Place-Based Development: A Socio-Economic Analysis

Regional Studies. Cultural factors are often absent from analyses of economic change and development, divorcing the nature of social places from the economic spaces within which they are situated. In response to this, the paper seeks both to conceptualize and to operationalize a framework of place-based culture. It develops a framework capturing the economic culture and community culture of places, and examines the relationship between the two, as a means of developing a broader understanding of the notion of culture than is usually considered by the extant literature. Empirically, the paper utilizes Wales as a reference region, with its culture compared with other regions of the UK, along with an analysis of cultural differences found across its localities. Overall, considerable variability is found in the cultural characteristics across both regions and localities, with the type of community culture embedded in places often found to be associated with the prevailing economic culture in these places, suggesting a strong symbiotic association.