What’s wrong with American regional science? A view from science studies.

questions and comments that followed my presentation, and which were more generous than I had any right to expect. I am also grateful to SSHRC for funding the research on which this paper is based, to Walter Isard and Allen Scott for granting me interviews, and to Scott Prudham and Joan Seidl who provided logistical assistance and much more when I undertook archival work at respectively Cornell University and LSE. This paper overlaps with another paper of mine published in the Journal of Economic Geography, “The rise (and decline) of regional science: lessons for the new economic geography? ” The latter is concerned with using the history of regional science to think through the prospects of the new economic geography, and represented especially by Paul Krugman’s work. In contrast, this paper is concerned with making an argument about the decline of regional science based upon its universalist methodological position. 2 Drawing upon archival material and primary texts, the paper argues that American regional science after early growth and success during the 1950s and 1960s waned because of a