Urban And Regional Analysis For Development Planning

Richard Rhoda

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000008838
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Science General
• Index: Biological Sciences

Dr. Rhoda concisely presents the wide range of analytical methods available to urban and regional development planners. Focusing on the needs of the practitioner, in each chapter he concentrates on a particular analytical issue, describing several types of relevant analyses and offering guidelines for selecting appropriate techniques to solve speci

Part 1
Introduction and Policy

1
Introduction

U Thant, when Secretary General of the United Nations, proclaimed the 1960s as the Development Decade and appealed to both rich and poor countries to make strenuous efforts to achieve economic and social development in third world areas. Attention was focused primarily on rapid growth in GNP through capital intensive industrialization. In addition to focusing on overall economic expansion, efforts were made to improve selected sectors; for example, many countries invested heavily in the expansion of formal education. There was widespread optimism at the beginning of the decade; many believed that with concentrated effort and heavy industrial investment during the 1960s, most third world countries could achieve self-sustaining growth that eventually would lead to the elimination of poverty. This optimism had all but disappeared by the end of the decade.

Though most third world countries experienced economic growth during the 1960s, the rates of growth were below expectations. Many countries suffered declines in real per capita income. The gap between rich and poor countries widened, imports outpaced export earnings, and many nations experienced serious balance-of-payments problems. The economic growth which did occur often benefited only middle and high classes. Low income segments of the population generally were excluded from the economic gains. Many poverty groups actually suffered a decline in standard of living during the decade. Population growth outpaced food production. In short, the Development Decade was a disappointment.

The experience of the 1960s brought about a search for alternatives to the economic-industrial and sectoral planning practiced during the decade. Third world countries and international assistance agencies turned away from these planning approaches and their implicit assumption that benefits of urban-economic growth would “trickle down” to low income groups and rural areas. Strategies were sought which placed more emphasis on equity and relationships between sectors. As a result of this search many countries decided to pursue regional development and other spatial planning strategies.

Latin American countries were the first group to grasp the regional development approach. In the mid-1960s many produced regional development plans based on the growth center concept. This derived from Perroux’s notion of an economic “growth pole" or dynamic industry or sector which could stimulate development in related industries or sectors.¹ The growth center concept extended Perroux’s notion into the spatial dimension; key industries, established at certain locations, could stimulate development in the surrounding region and in related industries and sectors.² Perhaps the most well-known example is Ciudad Guayana in Venezuela where the Government invested very heavily in steel and aluminum mills, natural gas production, cement factories, and infrastructure. Growth centers were accepted widely by both regional planners and governments during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Unfortunately, the growth center strategy was in some ways similar to the industry focused economic growth approach of the early 1960s. Both were accepted uncritically as a development panacea, both concentrated on capital intensive industrial growth, and both relied on the “trickle down" theory of spreading benefits to low income groups and rural areas. The real difference between the two was that the earlier economic growth approach ignored the spatial dimension, thus assuring that investments would be made in primate cities, whereas the growth center strategy explicity specified locations, usually excluding primate cities. The popularity of the growth center strategy was short-lived; by the mid to late 1970s the strategy, as originally conceived, was rejected by many scholars and planners.³

Fortunately, rejection of the original growth center idea was not accompanied by a wholesale rejection of spatial planning and regional development strategies. Quite the contrary, by the mid 1970s a large number of third world countries were pursuing variations of spatial planning.

A holistic view was being taken of areas selected for development and concern was directed toward the interrelationships between various sectors such as agriculture, industry, employment, education, and health.

In the early 1970s, international development agencies started to emphasize equity aspects of development projects. Whereas the focus of the 1960s was economic growth, that in the 1970s became growth with equity. Aid agencies began to insist that the projects they supported have demonstrable benefits for low income groups. The spatial planning approach, by virtue of its emphasis on variations between areas, is appropriate for efforts aimed at equalizing the spatial distribution of benefits. Yet this approach also can accommodate concern for equity within a region, i.e., vertical equity in the distribution of benefits among low, medium, and high income groups.

Basic information needed for spatial planning can be obtained through urban and regional analysis. In addition, analyses also may provide information which is useful to a variety of related development activities such as understanding development problems and constraints, locating and characterizing target groups, identifying project opportunities, and formulating policy.

Analysis

Appropriate analysis is a very important factor in successful development efforts. Most of the great failures, such as the well-documented Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme, can be attributed to incomplete or inappropriate analysis. The success of development activities is dependent upon adequate understanding of local conditions, socioeconomic processes, and the anticipated impacts of proposed interventions. This understanding can be significally enhanced by careful analysis.

Analysis can take many forms. It can be very simple, such as a rough separation of national income into its basic components. It can be very complex and require millions of computations, such as a detailed regional input-output analysis. Preliminary “quick and clean” analyses are often very useful; they can provide needed background and indicate appropriate directions for subsequent investigations.⁴ Analyses frequently are conducted using an iterative style; the results of broadscope, preliminary investigations are compared to study objectives to determine if further effort is warranted. Sometimes these results are used to redefine or clarify the study objectives.

Some people falsely assume that analysis necessarily implies quantitative or statistical procedures. Analysis can be qualitative and based on verbal information. Such analyses often are used to describe development contexts or to identify the major features of crucial development problems. A model for qualitative analysis may consist of an ordered set of questions or topics to be considered. In this case, the investigation is performed by addressing the questions or topics using whatever information is appropriate and available. Judgements must be made concerning the importance or weight of the different factors which bear on the question under consideration. This is particularly important when the factors are conflicting.

Quantitative analysis generally is based on numerical data and usually involves mathematical or statistical procedures. It may be used to describe development situations, such as the percentage of people in a given area who are living below a specified poverty income level. Another use is the identification and measurement of relationships between selected indicators. For example, correlation techniques can provide a statistical assessment of the existence and strength of the relationship between, say, farm access to market towns and cash earnings per hectare.

Urban and Regional Analysis

Though closely related to other types of socioeconomic analysis, urban and regional analysis is identified by its spatial perspective. It deals with processes and characteristics both within and between such spatial units as regions, districts, cities, or communities within metropolitan areas. Examples include linkages between a market town and its surrounding rural hinterland, the characteristics and development potential of a specific region, the spatial distribution of poverty within a metropolitan area, or the factors which influence the provision of housing in a given city. It should be recognized that urban and regional analysis overlaps with, and draws upon, several social science disciplines including anthropology, economics, geography, political science, and sociology.

There is no clean dividing line between urban analysis and regional analysis. The former is actually a special case of the latter which focuses on patterns and processes within individual urban or metropolitan areas. It may even turn out that patterns within a city may result from processes operating elsewhere. For example, the rapid expansion of a squatter settlement may result from a persistent drought in another region of the country. In this case, an analysis of the squatter settlement might entail a discussion of the drought.

Analysis of the urban system focuses on the size, functions, and locations of all urban centers within an area. The urban system is viewed as an interconnected set of nodes which provide such needed functions as markets for agricultural products, industrial production, distribution points for farm inputs, education, health, and administration. These nodes may vary in size from large metropolitan areas to small towns.

Regional analysis may focus on a single region or a group of regions. Multiregional analyses compare and contrast the characteristics of individual regions as well as investigate interactions among them. An analysis of one region focuses on the spatial distribution of activities within the region and intraregional interactions. Such an analysis may consider also the relationships between the region and other regions.

Urban and regional analysis can make an important contribution to development activities. It can be used to make background assessments of countries, regions, or urban areas. Such assessments, which often are based on existing and readily available information sources, can provide a description of a wide variety of human and natural characteristics of the area. Assessments also may identify specific development problems and potential project opportunities. An example of such an opportunity might be the expansion of labor intensive agriprocessing activities in major market towns. If such an activity looks promising, additional analysis of key issues may be required before project identification documents can be written. These key issues might include potential for expanded agricultural production, supply of labor, and availability of markets for agriproducts. Review of project identification documents usually reveal additional information gaps which require further analysis. In our example this might include more detailed investigation of key issues previously identified; for instance, potential for expanded output of specific agricultural products, or skill level of unemployed labor force at specific locations.

Notes

1. Footnotes appear at the end of each chapter.

1. Francois Perroux, “Economic Space: Theory and Applications,” Quarterly Journal of Economics. 64 (1950). See also Francois Perroux, “The Domination Effect and Modern Economic Theory,” Social Research, 17 (1950): 188–206.

2. J. R. Boudeville, Problems of Regional Economic Planning (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1965). Antoni Kuklinski, ed., Growth Poles and Growth Centers in Regional Planning (The Hague: Mouton, 1972). Malcolm Mosely, Growth Centers in Spatial Planning (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1974). Niles Hansen, ed., Growth Centers in Regional Economic Development (New York: The Free Press, 197^)7 United Nations Center for Regional Development, Growth Pole Strategy and Regional Development Planning in Asia (Nagoya, Japan: UNCRD. 1976).

3. Michael Conroy, “Rejection of Growth Center Strategy in Latin American Regional Development Planning,” Land Economics. 49 (1973): 371–80. A. P. Gilbert and D. E. Goodman, “Regional Income Disparities and Economic Development: A Critique,” in A. Gilbert, ed., Development Planning and Spatial Structure (London: John Wiley & Sons, 1976). Niles Hansen, “Sn Evaluation of Growth Center Theory and Practice,” Environment and Planning. 7 (1975): 821–32.

4. Robert Chambers, “Rural Poverty Unperceived: Problems and Remedies,” World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 400 (Washington, D. C. 1980).

2
Analysis of Urban and Regional Policy

The objective of this type of analysis is to identify and describe relationships between governmental activities and urban and regional development. In this context, governmental “policy” is defined very broadly as any activity by public agencies which affects urban and regional development. It includes explicit, policies expressed in legislative plans as well as the unstated implicit, and often unintended ones. Some of the latter may result from decisions to do nothing. For example, squatter settlement removal as well as government tolerance and neglect of such settlements are both examples of urban policy. Though primary attention is concentrated here on the consequences of urban and regional policy, analysis also can be directed to the causes of this policy. We might ask for instance, what impacts public and private groups have on government urban and regional policy?

Explicit Policies

The number of countries with explicit urban and regional development policies has increased rapidly in recent years. These policies have come forth under a variety of labels such as growth poles, growth centers, regional development, intermediate-sized city development, urban decentralization, market towns, rural service centers, and rural development. Unfortunately, these labels never have been defined precisely and the concepts which they represent tend to be muddled. For example, the term “growth center” has been applied to major urban-industrial complexes and to small urban places serving surrounding rural areas. Furthermore, the term has been used to describe existing cities which developed naturally as well as the planned development of centers in previously unoccupied areas. Because of the clouded terms and concepts used in regional development, the label attached to a policy may not represent accurately the spatial development strategy advocated. Explicit regional development policies should be scrutinized carefully to determine their intent.

Most, if not all, explicit urban and regional policies attempt to stimulate development in communities outside the largest, or primate, city. Such policies often are based on government desires to reduce the growth of low income populations in the primate city by diverting migration to secondary cities. The size of communities selected for concentrated development may vary from cities of over a million to rural villages. Policies generally call for increased productive activ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Dedication
• Contents
• Tables and Figures
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• PART 1. INTRODUCTION AND POLICY
• PART 2. URBAN AND REGIONAL POPULATION CHARACTERISTICS
• PART 3. REGIONAL ANALYSIS
• PART 4. URBAN ANALYSIS
• PART 5. CASE STUDIES