This study of South East England during the 1980s turns the idea of the traditional 'old style' regional textbook on its head and in so doing brings an innovative new approach to one of geography's central areas of study. The authors take a stongly regional approach to space and place with the specific goal of exploring the dramatic growth which took place in the 1980s and the contradictory effects which it produced. This study looks into the contours of this international phenomenen within one of the most reputedly successful regions of Britain and to enquire into the nature of the growth there.