Competitiveness and Polycentrism for SMEs in Bogotá Region, Colombia

New Economic And Polycentric Geography

The geographical concentration arises from the interaction of increasing returns to scale, transport costs, and the demand based on the mobility of the productive factors. Generally, economies of scale, and consequently increasing returns, make agglomeration possible and after a certain point of support, concentration becomes self-reinforcing and it is increasingly difficult for a reversal or a rupture in the process to take place. In the “Edge Cities” from Los Angeles, one could see the emergence of an order that is based on a structure of districts that are perfectly differentiated in a spontaneous manner, and that was repeated in a more or less regular way.

The interaction between the mobility of the factors, increasing returns, and transport costs generate forces that favor the agglomeration depending on the tension between the centripetal forces and the centrifugal forces; with a shorter range of centripetal forces than of the latter.