Interactions between urban systems and localized productive systems: An approach to endogenous regional development in terms of innovative milieu

From the 1970s onwards, the regional development suffers a change in its nature: it becomes more and more endogenous. The transition from a perspective of development from above to a perspective of development from below, and the transition from a problematic of redistribution to a problematic of resources creation, need more than a readjustment of the existing regional theories. It turns out to be necessary to focus on the endogeneization of the development mechanism, i.e. on the interactions leading to transformations and adaptations of localized production systems. In fact, it is a matter of building up theories of change that would be able to explain how a region can generate mechanism of wealth creation from its specific resources. Now, these different processes are closely connected to urban organization and their implementation depends on the milieu (i.e. innovative or non‐innovative).