It
concerns planning for a sub-national territory with known scale (size) and
extent (scope), normally a contiguous area whose parts have common or
complementary characteristics and are linked by intensive interaction or flows.
The whole region is set apart from neighboring territories by its distinctive
economic and social characteristics, continuities and discontinuities,
opportunities and problems, even though it may not have defined local authority
structures and clear administrative boundaries.
It is
intermediate between national and urban levels and straddles the gap between
national and grassroots levels.
Region
is always extended urban space – it has urban as well as rural components.
-
as cited in Regions: Regional Planning and Development, Concepts,
Principles, and Strategies
Oshean Lee C.
Garonita, EnP., PIEP
-
Urban and Regional Planning
URP is
the unified development of urban communities and their environs and of states,
regions and the nation as a whole, as expressed through determination of the
comprehensive arrangement of land uses and land occupancy and their regulation
Spatial
planning was defined as ‘the methods used largely by the public sector to
influence the future distribution of activities in space’ (CEC 1997b p. 24).
This definition, from the EU compendium of spatial planning systems and
policies, is developed further: spatial planning embraces measures to
coordinate the spatial impacts of other sectoral policies, to achieve a more
even distribution of economic development between regions than would otherwise
be created by market forces, and to regulate the conversion of land and
property uses.
-
American Institute of Certified Planners
URP refers
to the scientific, orderly and aesthetic disposition of land, buildings,
resources, facilities and communication routes, in use and in development, with
a view to obviating congestion and securing the maximum practicable degree of
economy, efficiency, convenience, sound environment.
- Canadian Institute
of Planners
Encyclopedia
of Urban Studies
1. American
– urban & regional planning
2. British –
town & country planning
3. French –
“ amanagement du territoire” or environmental planning
4. United
Nations – human settlements planning
Importance of Regional Planning
The importance of
regional development policy for national development cannot be overemphasized.
On one hand, it is especially important in countries where regional disparities
are fairly marked that these imbalances cannot just be overlooked both from the
point of view of attaining equity as well as maintaining social cohesion. On
the other, the development of regions considering their growth potentials would
help promote sustainable growth of the national economy through a more rational
population distribution, increased employment opportunities and enhanced
productivity.
- httpdirp3.pids.gov.phrisdpspidsdps0203.pdf
Focus of Regional Planning
1. Decentralization
policies
2. Distribution
of population
3. Reduction
of economic disparities among regions – versus economic polarization
4. Inter-regional
allocation or redistribution of resources (regional convergence)
5. Institutional
capacitation (e.g. reorganization of local governments
6. Regional
planning as networking
The new paradigm of Regional Planning since the
1990s:
1. The real assets of a region are the actors
within the region, their resources and the specific regional culture of
cooperation, communication and competition.
2. The core of spatial planning is no longer the
elaboration of plans and programs. Regional development must promote the
realization of planning goals by supporting the cooperation between different
stakeholders, both frompublic administration and the private sector.
3. Planning and acting in networks is especially
important at the regional level.
4. the role of space becomes different and
planners need special knowledge (ex. international marketing)
Aspects of Regional Planning
Physical
Economic
Social
Cultural
Environmental
The Purposes of Regional Planning
The primary purpose is deciding on the
general distribution of new activities and developments. This is necessarily indicated on
some map base, but the scale of regional planning and other
considerations will dictate the level of detail given in showing, for example,
new settlements, areas of commercial and economic development, placing
of linear or other major infrastructure.
REGIONAL PLANNING THEORIES
Agricultural Location Theory
The von Thunen model of
agricultural land use was developed in the pre-Industrialization era, and was a
representation of the most efficient and economical use of land surrounding a
metropolitan center, designed to maximize industry profit.
The model is based on many limiting
assumptions – that the soil composition surrounding a city 360-degrees is
uniform, that there are no geological anomalies such as mountains or rivers to
disrupt the structure, that the city is indeed centrally, compactly
located…there are many obvious shortcomings. And in our post-industrial
society the shortcoming are even more manifold, due to the redistribution of
jobs away from the agricultural sector and the emergence of the “suburb,” among
other obvious differences. It is easy to imagine that von Thunen’s model
would be obsolete in this day and age.
The von Thunen model is most relevant today in
less developed countries. There, the development of transportation and
food preservation is much less than in rich countries and von Thunen's model
still applies to a greater degree. In the rich world, the model is also
applicable in that it emphasizes that land near to cities is more expensive and
therefore cannot really be used for uses that do not bring in a great deal of
money per unit of land area.
Weakness
The von Thunen model has weaknesses because it
does not allow for things like roads or railroads that make it easier to
transport goods over long distances. He also does not anticipate things
like refrigerated transport that would allow even perishable things to be
transported over long distances.
AGROPOLITAN MODEL
Agropolitan
approach of Friedmann and Douglass (1975, 1978) posited
that rural development could be best pursued by linking it to urban development
at the local level. The rural town was seen as the principal site for
non-agricultural and political-administrative functions rather than as a growth
pole; local knowledge should be incorporated into planning processes at the
local level, and the district scale was seen as the appropriate unit for
development. Thus, decentralisation, democratization and participation were key
factors (Douglass, 1998a).
• Starting such processes of
development required at least three factors;
• access to agricultural land
and water;
• the
devolution of the political authority to the local level (decentralisation);
• a
shift in national development policies in favour of a diversified agricultural
production
(Douglass,
1998 a)
GROWTH POLE (Francois Perroux)
•
“Growth
does not appear everywhere and all at once; it manifests itself in points or
‘poles’ of growth, with variable intensities; it spreads by different channels
with variable terminal effects for the economy as a whole.”
Growth Pole - A spatial agglomeration of related
industries which contains a growing number of propulsive firms, which,
through their expansion, induce growth in the surrounding hinterland.
Propulsive
firm/industry - dominant
economic unit which when it grows or innovates, induces growth in the other
economic units. It may be a firm, a cluster of firms within the same sector
(i.e., an industry), or a collection of firms which have shared agreement
(industrial estate).
The growth pole theory is based on the belief that
governments of developing countries can induce economic growth and welfare by
investing heavily in capital-intensive industries in large
urban centres or regional capitals. This growth is
supposed to spread to the rural areas in a process of regional development
(Rondinelli, 1985; Unwin, 1989).
- Attractive as a
policy tool for the following reasons:
- owing to the various agglomeration
economies it tends to be a very efficient way of generating development;
- the concentration of investment in
specific growth points costs less in terms of public expenditure than whole
sale grants to large areas;
- the spread effects out of the growth point
will help to solve the problems of depressed regions.
Weaknesses
But experiences from Latin America and Africa have proved
difficult to achieve success, specially because of the failure of the expected
“trickle down effects”. These have been replaced instead by adverse “backwash effects”
that have maintained or even increased inequality between urban and rural areas
(Unwin, 1989)4. Lipton’s basic argument of “urban bias” is that the urban
dwellers, having far more power than the rural ones, are able to divert a
disproportionate share of resources towards their own interests and against the
rural sector. In this process, the more efficient and labor-intensive small and
poor farmers are forced either to sell their produce to the bigger farmers in disadvantageous
conditions, to turn out to subsistence production or to finish joining the
ranges of rural-urban migrants.
GROWTH CENTER THEORY (Jacques
R. Boudeville)
• “Transformed
‘Growth Pole’ into a specific place within a region that is heterogeneous,
continuous, and not specialized.”
Growth Center (geographic space) - is a
propulsive urban center of a region possessing a complex of expanding
industries where the agglomeration of activities induces growth in its
surrounding hinterland. The growth center has growth rate of population or employment
that is greater than that of total region.
“Regional growth center” refers
to “a set of expanding industries located in an urban area and inducing further
development of economic activity throughout its zone of influence” with complex
activities around a propulsive center.
INDUSTRIAL LOCATION THEORY
u
Location of Industry
The location of the unit of production, the firm,
is determined in relation to the source of the inputs and the market for the
output.
The
primary determinants of location:
-
Factors of production: land, labor, capital and enterprise
-
Market factor
Three approaches:
o
Least cost approach – attempts to explain
location in terms of the minimization
of factor costs (Alfred Weber);
o
Market area analysis – emphasizes the demand, or
market factors (Losch);
o
Profit maximization approach – is the logical
outcome of the other two. Industrialists seek locations that will bring maximum
profits, considering both markets and costs.
Spatial Linkages
1. Forward
Linkage - outputs or sales from
one intermediate firm/industry is maximally utilize by another firm/industry
2. Backward
Linkage - factors of production or intermediary inputs from one
firm/industry is maximally utilized by another firm/industry.
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