By analysing the chances which social problems in industrial agglomeration areas have of being considered it has been argued that territorially based social needs and ecological interests can only be formulated and represented in a distorted and incomplete manner. This holds partly because in industrial agglomeration areas people’s interests are typically oriented towards the spheres of production and consumption. Another significant factor which helps to explain this phenomenon is the fact that socio-economic interests are strongly and effectively organized. Thus given the political structures of industrial agglomeration areas which put characteristically a very high premium on organization, non-economic interests are bound to be overlooked and weakly represented. Reflecting possibilities of “political counter-steering” (politische Gegensteuerung) it appears that traditional structures and orientations which, very loosely, could be called parochial, may well qualify as nuclei for the promotion of non-economic interests. However, the lack of parochial orientations and the unlikeliness of developing equivalent orientations seems to be a typical feature of industrial agglomeration areas.