Chapter 1 City-Regions and Their Changing Space Economies Koech Cheruiyot 1.1 Introduction As with any intellectual endeavour, mainstream economic thought has its share of unresolved discourses. Storper (1997) points out that for almost a century econo- mists have been pulled in different directions, with no indication of when the prevailing issues and discourses will be resolved. He notes that mainstream eco- nomic thought has emphasized the forces that lead to convergence, normalization, and equilibrium in the face of change. Within this school of thought, central con- cepts include perfect competition, diminishing returns, mobile resources, and reversibility of processes. Storper (1997) also describes an alternative school of thought that views the world as inclined to creativity, disruption and dynamism and constantly in a state of disequilibrium. Concepts considered salient according to this point of view include market imperfections, increasing returns, asset specificity, slow moving or fixed factor inputs, and the possibility of irreversibility of pro- cesses. Storper (1997) concludes that using these theoretical oppositions in silo is wrong. Rather, he argues that the world is characterized by dualism. Consequently, he advocates for the examination of economies through an economic geography lens that allows for theorizing the world in terms of specificity and difference, divergence and convergence of economic processes, and mobility and immobility of resources, for example. K. Cheruiyot (&) University of the Witwatersrand, Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO), a partnership between the University of Johannesburg, the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, the Gauteng Provincial Government and organized local government, Private Bag 3 WITS, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa e-mail: Kenneth.cheruiyot@gcro.ac.za © Springer International Publishing AG 2018 K. Cheruiyot (ed.), The Changing Space Economy of City-Regions, GeoJournal Library, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67483-4_1 1