15
the old FRG have been very negative (Bade et al., 2002, 12; see figure 8, appendix).
Dortmund lost 23.8% of its share of employed people (Duisburg 35.4%) whereas all
centres of the agglomeration areas lost only 9.1% and the cities of Nürnberg 3.4%,
Mannheim 8.3%, Stuttgart 9.3% und Cologne 10.7%. Also the productivity (gross
value added per employee) in comparison to the average development of the former
FRG fell by about 20%. In absolute terms the productivity of the jobs in Dortmund
grew by 72% from 1976 until the year 2000, whereas the FRG (old) grew by
117.2%.
The sectoral structure of the city and the region is also very problematic because the
share of the processing industry is only 13.4% (17.2% in the region) in comparison
to the agglomeration centres (17.3) and agglomeration regions (21.9%) and the
Federal Republic (24.5%). These data signal a large step towards a situation of de-
industrialisation. Business- orientated services which normally expand very fast need
the processing industry as a pole of demand. Cities with the best performance, like
Munich or Stuttgart, do have a strong industry and a strong services sector (sectoral
parallelity hypothesis) .
The Dortmund share of advanced services (financial sector, insurance, legal and
economic consultancy, technical consulting, real estate and other business orientated
services (marketing, advertising etc)) runs mostly at the average of Germany,
although large cities and centres of the first category (Oberzentren) normally have an
over-proportional share.
Also the shift-share analysis shows very significantly that the structure of the
economy does not explain the over-proportional amount of losses in the processing
industries and the under-proportional gain of jobs in the main sectors of the services
industries. So the so-called location factor, which is a statistical garbage can, is very
important. If all sectors of the economy of the city of Dortmund had developed like
the sectors in Germany (old) at all between 1976 and 2000, Dortmund should have
gained 17.000 jobs or 7.6%, the region of Dortmund about 15.000 or 3.8%. But in
real terms Dortmund lost about 35.000 jobs, the region 36.000 (Bade et al., 2002).
V. Modernisation as a necessary but not sufficient condition for solving the crisis:
An outline of an alternative macroeconomic and social-ecological strategy
The main result of my investigation seems to be that modernisation strategies in the
sense of cluster policies and the approach of M. Porter and his diamond are a
necessary but not sufficient condition for solving the crisis of large, old
industrialised regions like the Ruhr or East Germany. So the interregional policies for
strengthening the regions in crisis have to be improved. This improvement has to be
discussed in two parts. First on the macroeconomic level and secondly on the level of
national state and European regional policies.
1. A comparison between the policies of the Euroland (European Central Bank and
the Eurogroup within the EU) and the UK monetary and fiscal policies in the nineties
may open our eyes to some important differences in the monetary and fiscal policies
which affect the general level of economic activity and employment (Arestis/Sawyer,
2002; Priewe 2002; European Economists for an Alternative Economic Policy in
Europe, 2001): In the 90s the UK approach was much more Keynesian-orientated
and therefore expansive than the continental one, which was very stupidly fixed on
low inflation rates and low budget deficits, resulting in the large countries of the
continental EU in much lower growth rates of the GDP and therefore in lower