The concept of path dependence is central to the current discourse on evolutionary approaches in regional transformations. Along the subtropical coastlands of eastern Australia, low-input, low-income, and labour-intensive dairy farms were subject to prolonged dysfunction. Their creation and entrenchment serve as a potent case study of path dependence and lock-in that were driven by mutually reinforcing attributes—behavioural, socio-economic, cultural, political, and infrastructural. Functional rigidification and incipient dissolution were scrutinised in farm surveys undertaken from 1952 to 1954 in the Moruya and Copmanhurst districts of coastal New South Wales. At both locales, the dairy industry comprised a core of long-term stable producers located mainly on the more accessible and productive alluvial soils, together with a fluctuating number of marginal producers motivated by a variable mix of personal, locational, and temporal influences. The demise of dairying was prolonged, in part by the industry's exceptional survival capabilities and in part by the lack of any viable alternative farming staple. The belated collapse of dairy farming in the 1960s and 1970s has facilitated the emergence and lock-in of an alternative multifunctional pathway, driven primarily by consumption with subordinate production and protection values. The two case studies reveal synergies between the closely aligned path dependence and the multifunctional trajectory/transition concepts in yielding insights into the dynamics of rural change and in offering guidelines for further research within evolutionary economic geography.

中文翻译：

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澳大利亚东部亚热带海岸地区本世纪中叶乳脂奶牛场功能失调的路径依赖：Moruya 和 Copmanhurst 的案例研究

路径依赖的概念是当前关于区域转型中进化方法的讨论的核心。沿着澳大利亚东部的亚热带海岸，低投入、低收入和劳动密集型的奶牛场长期功能失调。它们的创建和巩固是路径依赖和锁定的有力案例研究，这些属性是由行为、社会经济、文化、政治和基础设施等相辅相成的属性驱动的。1952 年至 1954 年在新南威尔士州沿海的莫鲁亚和科普曼赫斯特地区进行的农场调查中，对功能性僵化和初期溶解进行了仔细检查。在这两个地方，乳制品行业由主要位于更容易获得和生产力更高的冲积土壤上的长期稳定生产者组成，以及受个人、位置和时间影响的可变组合所驱动的边际生产者数量的波动。乳制品业的消亡被延长，部分原因是该行业具有非凡的生存能力，部分原因是缺乏任何可行的替代农业主食。1960 年代和 1970 年代奶牛养殖业的迟来崩溃促进了替代多功能途径的出现和锁定，主要由具有次要生产和保护价值的消费驱动。这两个案例研究揭示了紧密一致的路径依赖和多功能轨迹/转型概念之间的协同作用，可以深入了解农村变化的动态，并为演化经济地理学的进一步研究提供指导。