Limits to Locking-out through Restructuring: The Textile Industry in Daegu, South Korea

Cho M. and Hassink R. Limits to locking-out through restructuring: the textile industry in Daegu, South Korea, Regional Studies. The restructuring of old industrial areas is a relatively new phenomenon in the newly industrializing countries of East Asia, such as South Korea. Of the few theoretical concepts that try to explain the decline of such old industrial areas, evolutionary economic geography, in general, and the lock-in concept, in particular, are promising ones. This paper shows that the impact of locally induced lock-ins can be regarded as relatively strong in the textile industry region of Daegu, South Korea, and that due to this strong lock-in, renewal has been relatively unsuccessful.