Some dilemmas of post-industrialism in a region of traditional industry: The case of the Katowice conurbation, Poland

The problem of using the concept of post-industrialism to define regions with traditional industries is addressed in this article. It focuses on the diversity of industrial development in the Katowice conurbation (Poland) and the difficulties of situating the region in the widely-used taxonomy by Phelps and Ozawa, which assumes a one-way transition from the late-industrial to post-industrial stage. The authors point to the fact that only some of the towns can be described as post-industrial, since there are also towns in which traditional industries continue to develop relatively well and others at an advanced stage of re-industrialisation. The proposal is made that the Katowice conurbation can be described as a “trans-industrial region” in order to account for the various stages of development in the industrial sector in the towns of the conurbation, and to underline the dynamic nature and temporal variability of the industrialisation factor in the region.