‘Left-behind’ amid the ‘boom’? Large-scale green technology projects and reinforced peripheralisation in Eastern Germany

Abstract

Driven by the recent investment surge in large-scale green technology projects, the European Union’s shift towards climate neutrality has sparked new development in formerly ‘left-behind’ places across Europe. This article critically revisits the core of extended urbanisation theory to explore how peripheralisation dynamics evolve and are reinforced when ‘left behind’ places become new centres of urban and economic development linked to Europe’s green transition. Drawing empirically on the implementation of a Chinese gigafactory for electric vehicle battery cells and associated infrastructure in Thuringia, Eastern Germany, the article explores three dimensions of centralisation-peripheralisation dynamics (economic, infrastructural and institutional) that reveal how the project’s implementation has led to (1) outward-oriented value flows with limited local benefit; (2) large-scale infrastructure that fails to address socio-ecological needs on-site and (3) exacerbated power imbalances between state institutions and local planning, administration and policy professionals. Challenging the prevailing assumption that large-scale projects and associated built infrastructure inevitably drive the development of ‘left-behind’ places, the article demonstrates that the rise in transnational capital and reinforced peripheralisation are closely intertwined across scales and time spans. Overall, it seeks to inspire a relational framework that combines the multi-scalar dimension of extended urbanisation in Europe’s peripheries with a grounded analysis of (trans)local histories and power relations.