MODULE 8: REGIONAL PLANNING THEORIES
space-economy
Source: Regional Development Theory
Regional Development
 about the geography of welfare and its
evolution
 played a central role in such disciplines
as economic geography, regional
economics, regional science and
economic growth theory
 refers to complex space-time dynamics
of regions
 multidimensional concept with a great
socioeconomic variety that
determined by a multiplicity of factors
such as natural resource endowments,
quality and quantity of labor, capital
availability and access, productive and
overhead investments, entrepreneurial
culture and attitude, physical
infrastructures, sectoral structure,
technological infrastructure and
progress, open mind, public support
systems, and so forth.
Two Dominant Issues in Regional Development
 How is regional welfare created?
o Allocative Efficiency - addresses
the economic issue of an
optimal spatial-economic use of
scarce resources (i.e., inputs
such as capital, labor, physical
resources, knowledge etc.) so
as to generate a maximum
value of output
 How can we cope with undesirable
interregional welfare discrepancies?
o addresses the mechanisms and
conditions (economic, policy
interventions) that may help to
alleviate undesirable
development disparities in the
Location of Human Activity and Regional
Development
Location Theory
 location of economic activity created
the foundations for regional welfare
 made up of a blend of physical
geography (determining the
accessibility of a location and the
availability of resources) and smart
economic behavior (through a clever
is combination of production factors and
market potentials in space).
 played a central role in explaining not
only the dispersion of economic activity,
but also the dispersion of welfare
among regions.
 Cost minimization and profit
maximization principles are integrated
in a solid economic setting, in which
both partial and general spatial
equilibrium studies on the space
economy can be found that highlight
the geographical patterns of industrial
and residential behavior.
 availability of and access to
infrastructure is another critical success
factor for regional development
 In addition to the presence of labor as
capital on traditional factor inputs, we
observe an increasing interest in
measuring the impact of infrastructure
on regional development
Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and the
Knowledge Economy
 Since Marshall, Schumpeter and Kirzner
we know that innovation and
entrepreneurship are the driving factors
behind economic growth.
  A key aspect of innovation in a modern
space-economy is the use of and access
to the information and communication
technology (ICT) sector.
Entrepreneurship
 complex and multi-faceted
phenomenon that finds its roots in risk-
taking behavior of profit-seeking
individuals in a competitive economy
 lies at the heart of innovation as the art
of doing creative things for the sake of
competitive advantage
Endogenous Growth - Growth of output in the
economy that is driven by long-run
improvement of productivity of the production
factors, with this improvement being sensitive
to various aspects of the economy.
Endogenous Growth Theory
 technological progress is not
exogenously given, but an endogenous
response of economic actors in a
competitive business environment
 regional growth is not the result of
exogenous productivity-enhancing
factors, but rather the outcome of
deliberate choices of individual actors
(firms and policy-makers).
New Economic Geography - Axiomatic
approach to formal mathematical modeling of
economic behavior of households and firms
across space, allowing for imperfect
competition and resources required for spatial
interaction.
Regional Development Policy in Perspective
 supply-side policy of a Keynesian nature
with a pronounced interest in public
spending in less privileged regions;
 growth pole strategies, with a clear
emphasis on a concentrated growth
impulse in a few designated place or
areas;
 infrastructure policy with the aim to
create the necessary physical conditions
(e.g., improvement of accessibility) in
order to enhance the competitive
capabilities of regions;
 self-organizing policy where regions are
encouraged to get their acts together
on the basis of indigenous strength with
a limited role of governments;
 suprastructure policy in which regions
are provided with favorable R&D
conditions, educational facilities,
knowledge centers and the like in order
to create the conditions for a self-
sustained development.
Source: Regional Planning
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.
Challenges
1. Urban Design
 creation of new places or
refashioning of old is led more
by design considerations than
by the wider analyses
 carries the risk of losing the
comprehensive perspective and
aspirations which planning, if
worth doing at all, required
2. Postmodernism
 doubts if planning is either
possible or desirable, whether
 physically, socially or
economically
3. Markets
 belief that markets do and
should dictate the location of
new development, the creation
of new cities, the management
of the biophysical environment.
Relational Nature of Space
 space should not be seen as a neatly
nested hierarchy, with small areas
within larger ones up to the region,
nation, and continent
 more complex crosscutting articulation
of scales or spaces, giving a much
greater fuzziness to borders, boundaries
and more traditional bounded spaces
Alternative Delimitations of Regions
1. Biophysical/Ecological
 more or less obvious physical
features, including river
catchments, or boundaries such
as rivers, seas, mountains or
changes in soils and, hence
farming practices.
 Bioregions - ideal basis for
planning territories across the
planet in a comprehensive and
ecologically sensitive way.
 biophysical is never in any
extensive sense ‘natural’,
separate or freestanding
 biophysical features are in
continuous flux in their real
meaning and impact
 it is unusual for all scales of the
biophysical to coincide at all
tidily.
2. Political/Governmental
 planning is an activity typically
led by government
 the areas chosen may not catch
all the factors of interaction
which interest us, such as land
use – transport interactions
 areas may have little suitability
for effective decision making,
either because they are not
equipped by government with
competences or resources, or
because they are politically and
culturally weak, with no
identification by their
populations.
3. Social/Economic
 socio-economic processes
constitute the raw material for
what is to be planned in a space
– activities on areas of land,
living spaces, transport
channels on, under and above
the land surface
Purposes of Regional Planning
 Deciding on the general distribution of
new activities and developments - new
settlements, areas of commercial and
economic development, placing of
linear or other major infrastructure
Why is Regional Planning Popular Now?
 stretching of spatial relations in recent
decades, with changes in transport
patterns (dominance of the car and
lorry, power of airport locations and
capacities), and the widening reach of
economic relations, generate a demand
for a planning on wider scales.
 shift in the pattern of state activity, with
a more constrained budget but one
used with a more varied assortment of
regulatory powers over the now largely
 privatized infrastructural and would involve the acceleration
productive landscape of growth in the leading region
 changes in ‘governability’ and and encouraging migration of
democracy unemployed and low-
productivity labor to this region
Source: Regional development in the
from the lagging regions.
Philippines
 Trickle Down/Center Down
Theoretical Basis for Regional Development Paradigm - development can
start only in a relatively few
1. Neoclassical Economics dynamic sectors and geographic
 regional imbalances in supply locations from where it is
and demand manifest expected to spread to the
themselves in differences in remaining sectors and
prices of these factors of geographical areas of a country
production and commodities.  The trickle down process starts
 prices will be low in region A if from a high level (from
it has excess supply worldwide or national demand,
 prices will be high in region B if or from world or national
it has excess demand innovation centers) filtering
 With perfect mobility of the down and outward to national
production factors and and regional units through
commodities, these factors and various mechanisms: urban
commodities will move from hierarchy, multi-plant business
regions of low prices to regions organizations and large-scale
of high prices government organizations
 Prices are, thus, expected to  Intersectoral propulsions or
converge towards an developments in the center
interregional equilibrium such have led to a spatial
that factor and commodity concentration of activity
prices over the entire national clusters rather than the spatial
territory are equal. diffusion of these activities
 National Territorial Integration away from the center.
- can be attained through
improvements in national 2. Agriculture vs Industry
transport and communications  Agri: In many developing
network and the greater countries, food shortage is
promotion of mobility and prevalent and considering that
integration of production the majority of people are
factors and commodities in the engaged in agricultural activities
national and international investments including foreign
markets. aid that will be used to provide
 To reduce regional gap, the technical assistance that would
neoclassical economic theory lead to greater productivity in
suggests that a broad strategy the sector will not only solve
 the food problem but at the
same time increase people’s
income and improve the
country’s foreign exchange
 Indu: Resources (savings or
foreign aid) could be mobilized
to invest in basic industries,
various infrastructure projects
including power, machine tool
industries, etc. for progress to
be achieved.
 Unbalanced Growth Concept –
A country should make a
deliberate choice on whether to
take on an agricultural
development path or an
industrial development
direction given such
considerations.
 Balanced Growth Concept -
concentrating resources only in
a few sectors especially those
which have the absorptive
capacity for modern technology
would undermine the potentials
of the other sectors
3. Rural vs Urban Development
 centered on two major
directions: 1) which style of life
(rural or urban) is better for
mankind; and 2) which strategy
(rural development or
urbanization) should be
adopted to develop a country
 three fundamental questions:
1) whether it is possible to
develop rural areas without
urban development and urban
areas without rural
development; 2) whether there
is a country that has developed
relying solely either on rural
Major Regional Development Practices
and urban sector; and 3)
whether poverty and
underdevelopment are divisible
in clear-cut rural and urban
components.
 Development process should be
redefined in such a way that
urban development promotes
rural development and rural
development supports urban
development.
4. Centralization vs Decentralization
 Centralization – power of
decision-making is held by the
national government
 Decentralization - envisions a
structure where central
authority has limited power and
local communities takes most of
the decision-making and
responsibility
 Popular participation, which is
an important element of
development, is weakened by
centralization.
 A decentralized system is more
able to be in touch with the
people’s socio-economic
realities – meet the basic needs
of the people, ensure popular
participation in development
and mobilize the material and
human resources for
development on voluntary
basis.
 Each country is admonished to
seek the dynamic balance
between centralization and
decentralization at each stage
of their development rather
than subscribe to one form of
governance system altogether.
1. Growth Pole/Center Strategy
 Francois Perroux (1949)
 centers (poles or focii) from
which centrifugal forces
emanate and to which
centripetal forces are attracted.
Each center being a center of
attraction and repulsion has its
proper field which is set in the
field of all other centers
 development of an urban
center that can attract
economic activities through
infrastructure and direct
incentives, which in turn will
generate “spread effects” in the
peripheral region of that urban
center in the form of increased
employment and higher
incomes.
 poles can either be firms or
industries or group of firms or
industries which can be
“propulsive” if it has high
interaction with many other
firms, high degree of
dominance and great in size.
 Growth Center - economic and
social development is initiated
and transmitted to an area
around it
 Through a linear programming
solution, they showed that one
could determine what to invest
in (growth pole) considering the
optimum size of each of the
elements in the complex, the
scale economies involved and
the transport costs of each of
the inputs and outputs
 Growth centers have been
synonymous to cities or urban
areas. This was largely because
the criteria set to define a
growth center in most cases
were characteristics of most
urban areas.
 Periphery of a polarized region
can be divided into:
o Upward Transitional
Regions - areas which
are growing with high
growth potential but
are capital constrained
o Downward Transitional
Regions - old rural (or
industrial) economies in
decline and where
emigration is most
evident.
o Resource Frontier
Regions - new
settlement zones in
which potentials for
growth is large
o Special Problem
Regions - those needing
policy interventions
more than the other
cited regions
2. Agropolitan
 alternative strategy to the
growth center paradigm and in
answer to the debate on
reversing polarization
associated with the growth pole
strategy
 provided the type of “bottom
up” approach to development
planning and the achievement
of income equality faster than
growth pole strategy can
 Characteristics:
o a relatively small
geographical scale
o a high degree of self-
sufficiency and self-
 reliance in decision- improvement and disparity
making and planning, reduction, among others.
based on popular  In industry, promotion of labor-
participation and intensive industries using locally
cooperative action at available agricultural inputs is
local levels; undertaken and that small scale
o diversification of rural manufacturing is directed for
employment to include rural consumption.
both agricultural and  National Policy Perspective
non-agricultural o looks at regions as units
activities, emphasizing of analysis
the growth of small- o since regions differ in
scale rural the status of their
industrialization; agricultural and
o urban-rural industrial industrial development
functions and their and their natural
linkages to local resource endowment,
resources and investments should not
economic structures be over-concentrated in
o utilization and one region to the
evaluation of local neglect of others.
resources and o the pursuit of BAIDS will
technologies. necessitate the
estimation of growth
3. Balanced Agro-Industrial Development rates in each sector and
Strategy (BAIDS) region that would
 a strategy of support for both achieve the desired
agriculture and industry balance from a national
 the rise in agricultural incomes perspective
above subsistence level o can be done by
stimulates the demand for exploring and
outputs of manufacturing highlighting each
industries region’s specialization
 the expansion of incomes in the in agriculture and/or
industrial sector results in an industry in relation to
expansion of agricultural the locational
production through increased distribution of resource
demand for food and agro- inputs to these sectors
based industrial inputs. o The determination of
 In agriculture, emphasis is on regional specialization
increased production, will aid in the
marketing improvement, land- formulation of an
tenure changes, rural income efficient program of
public and private
 investments that would
operationalize such
agriculture-industry link
 Regional Policy Perspective
o looks at the balance
between sectors within
the region
o Within regions, regional
policy must be crafted
in such a way that it
promotes the
exploitation of agro-
industrial linkages in
terms of infrastructure
programs as well as
policies and guidelines
that facilitate
investment decision-
making in agriculture
and industry.
o a good deal of physical
planning and locational
analyses must be done
to produce a physical
distribution framework
that layouts the optimal
spreading of
infrastructure facilities
(e.g. roads and bridges,
power generation and
distribution, water
supply and
communications) to
facilitate agro-industrial
linkages.
o industrial location
within the region must
be given greater
attention - need to
consider human
settlement provision,
people-oriented
services and other
social amenity as
industries tend to
attract and concentrate
population around
them.
o regional and local plans
must veer from being
indicative towards
being more operational,
providing a clearer and
coherent integration of
social, economic,
physical and
institutional reforms as
well as investments and
priorities for developing
agriculture and
industry.
4. Integrated Area Development (IAD)
Old IAD
 evolved from traditional rural
development strategies such as
community development,
comprehensive planning and
integrated rural (agriculture)
development
 to build a “planning region” or a
“community region” that has a
common interest in some
development projects or set of
projects
 these units should be small
enough to be “seen steadily and
seen whole”, possessing
cohesion and homogeneity but
big enough to be of some
significance in the overall
national development scene
 some IAD units were conceived
or chosen on the basis of the
following: influence of feeder
roads, river basin, irrigation
projects, erosion zone,
 reforestation area, mining area,
resettlement area, school
districts, among others
 6 Principles for Delineating IAD
Units
1. Functional Meaning - areas into such a unit.
Borders should have a
development planning
significance (e.g., area of
influence of a feeder road,
an irrigation project,
resettlement, erosion, zone
etc.) and must have some
meaning in terms of
function
New IAD
2. Inhabitants are Target
Population - The population
inhabiting the area should
constitute a target
(vulnerable) population in
some sense.
3. Integration Potential - the
area should be suitable for
integrated development
whether alone or in
conjunction with a limited
number of other areas.
4. Aggregation Potential - The
area should be capable of
aggregation with other
units to permit integrated
planning and development
at the provincial, regional
and national levels.
5. A Political and
Administrative Unit - The
area should be itself a
political or administrative
unit, with an organization
suitable for participation of
the target population in
planning and execution of
projects and programs, or it
must be capable of easy
aggregation with other
6. Available Information and
Statistics - The area must
be one where statistics and
other information already
exist or one where the
same can be available
without excessive cost or
delay.
1. Inter-Regional/Inter-Local Approach
 Cluster - a geographical proximate
group of interconnected companies
and associated institutions in a
particular field, linked by
commonalities and
complementarities
 Two Types of Clustering
o Growth Cluster
 clustering of areas
(small political units,
e.g. municipalities)
are based on criteria
such as common
economic activities,
growth potentials
and physical linkages.
 has a center which
offers more
diversified and higher
level of services than
what is present in the
influence areas which
can perform any of
the following roles:
industrial center,
 trading center,  Social -
administrative having the
center, educational same cultural
center, recreational background
center and other and using the
functional roles. same
o In Pursuit of Sustainable language and
Development and dialect)
Environmental Management  Physical -
 a cluster is defined as geographicall
a subregional y contiguous
development area and linked by
wherein the infrastructure
boundaries are networks)
determined using  Spatial -
inter-local complement
delineation covering arity of
two or more areas or functional
political units. roles within
 comprises a the urban
development sub- structure)
region which is a  Political - the
suitable unit for land demarcation
management and of the cluster
planning due to its coincided
physical, with the
demographic, spatial administrativ
and economic e boundaries
characteristics of the LGUs)
 Criteria:  Environment
 Economic - al -
existence of experiencing
common similar
economic environment
base, al problems
complement and existence
ary or use of
resources, common
high resources
economic such as water
growth and
export 2. Inter-Country Approach
potentials)  Transborder Regions in
Asia
 o Tumen River Area reduce transaction
Development and transport costs
Program (Russia, and seize cultural
China, North Korea, and linguistic
South Korea, Japan) similarities
o Southern China  Political Commitment -
Growth Triangle willingness of member
(Hong Kong, Taipei, countries for compromises
China and Southern in sovereignty)
China mainly parts  Policy Coordination -
of Guangdong and tariffs, employment
Fujian provinces) regulation, real estate,
o Greater Mekong finance, foreign investment
Subregion (or GMS and foreign exchange)
including areas in  Infrastructure
Vietnam, Laos, Development - ports and
Cambodia, harbors
Thailand)
o Singapore-Johor- 5. Decentralization
Riau Growth
Triangle (Singapore, Major Forms:
Malaysia and
Indonesia)  Deconcentration - refers to the
o Brunei Darussalam- transfer of power to the local
Indonesia- administrative units or offices of
Malaysia- the central government
Philippines (BIMP)  Devolution - refers to the
East ASEAN Growth transfer of power to
Area (EAGA). subnational political entities or
 The more classic forms of subnational units of
these transnational spaces government, whose activities
include export-processing are outside the control of the
zones (EPZs) or free port central government.
zones
Dimensions of Decentralization
 The success of cross-border
regions had been attributed  Administrative
to these factors: Decentralization - associated
o Economic with deconcentration which
Complementarity - exists when resources are
significant generated centrally but a part
differentials in of it is allocated to
factor endowments decentralized units which
o Geographical implements the spending
Proximity - to activities according to the
 guidelines or control set at the
central government
 Fiscal Decentralization - related
to devolution wherein the
decentralized units have the
power and authority to
generate resources through its
taxing powers and to spend the
same according to established
legal criteria
Major Concerns of Fiscal
Decentralization
 Expenditure Assignment –
refers to the definition of
functions and services that will
be performed by local
government and that by the
center
 Revenue Assignment - in transport costs except a
concerns the power and
authority of local governments
to raise and administer tax
revenues
Considerations in Decentralization
 Decentralization induces
competition among
jurisdictions.
 Decentralization allows
experimentation in the
provision of output.
 Decentralization may generate
a smaller public sector and a
more efficient economy.
 Decentralization expands the
possibilities for increased
participation.
 Decentralization promotes
accountability through clearer
and closer linkages
Benefits of decentralization or efficiency
gains derived from decentralization can
be achieved if and only if vertical
coordination (among levels of
government) and horizontal
coordination (among localities) as well
as some degree of centralized decision-
making can be established.
Source: Alfred Weber’s Theory of
Industrial Location
Theory of Industrial Location
 firms will choose a location
minimizing their total costs
through a set of simplifications
 Location occurs in an isolated
region (no external influences)
composed of one market, that
space is isotropic (no variations
simple function of distance) and
that markets are located in a
specific number of centers.
 The model also assumes perfect
competition, implying a high
number of firms and customers,
small firm sizes (to prevent
disruptions created by
monopolies and oligopolies),
and complete knowledge of
market conditions, both for the
buyers and suppliers.
 Several natural resources, such
as water, are ubiquitous
(available everywhere), while
many production inputs such as
labor, fuel, and minerals are
available at specific locations.
 explains the location of heavy
industries, particularly from the
industrial revolution until the
mid-twentieth century
 Activities using a high level of
raw materials tend to locate
 near supply sources, such as  net income accruing to an area of land
aluminum factories, will locate above the net income of land at the
near energy sources (electricity) economic margin of production.
or port sites.  economic rent of a crop increases if the
 Activities using ubiquitous raw location of agricultural land is near the
materials, such as water, tend market due to less transportation cost
to be located close to markets.  measure of the advantage of one piece
of land over another.
Factors Influencing Industrial Location
 if it’s closer to the market its locational
1. Transport Costs rent is higher and it reduces with the
2. Labor Costs distance from the market
3. Agglomeration Economies
Assumptions of the Model
Source: Von Thunen’s Agricultural Location
 The isolated state comprises of one
Theory
market area and an agricultural
Theory of Agricultural Location hinterland.
 The market receives goods only from
 normative economic model that was
the hinterland and the hinterland sells
first presented by Johann Heinrich von
goods only to the market.
Thünen
 The hinterland ships its surpluses to no
 based on the concept of Economic Rent
other market except the city.
which is prevalent in farm market
 There is a homogeneous physical
distance relationships
environment, including a uniform Plain
 one of the earliest attempts to explain
around the City.
the pattern of land use in economic
 Farmers are settled in the hinterland
terms
who wish to maximize the profit.
 explains why and how agricultural land
 There is only one mode of transport
use pattern varies when we go away
that is horse wagon is used.
from the market
 Transportation cost is directly
 explains the hierarchy of agricultural
proportional to distance. The higher the
crops based on profit-making capacity.
distance higher the transport cost.
 the model tried to give the optimal land
use pattern which will give farmers Basic Postulates
maximum profit or rent.
1. The intensity of the production of
 particular activities were focused in
particular crop declines with the
certain zones around the center, ideally
distance from the Market. Here the
this would then lead to a system of
intensity of production means the
concentric rings with every ring
amount of inputs per unit area of the
specializing in different agricultural
land.
activities based on transportation costs,
2. The type of land 0use will vary with
weight, and Perishability.
distance from the Market.
Economic Rent
Intensity Theory
  Due to the rise in transportation cost,
intensive cultivation is most suitable
near the city center. Therefore, the
intensity of production of a particular
crop declines with distance from the
market.
Crop Theory
 there will be a variation in the land use
with distance and the factors
responsible for the variation in the land
use pattern are market price of a
particular crop, transportation cost,
production cost, and yield per unit of
land.
Concentric Zonal Rings of Agricultural
Production
1. Market Gardening and Milk Production
- Due to deficiency of food preservation
facilities, primitive modes of
transportation, and the highly perish
nature of products, market gardening,
and milk production were most suitable
in this zone.
2. Firewood and Lumbering Production -
Due to heavy bulkiness and primitive
transportation modes, wood was
comparatively costly to be shipped.
3. Grain Crops with No Fallow Land - Rye
was the most important market product
of this zone, having no fallow land.
Grains could be stored, easy to
transport and last longer than milk
products. Also, the agricultural land
would be cheaper farther away from
the market.
4. Grain Crops with 14% of Fallow Land -
The farmers of this zone usually
practiced seven years crop rotation with
one year each rotation of rye, barley
and oats, three-year rotation of
pastures and one year as fallow land.
5. Three-Field System - The farmers of this
zone practiced three-field system,
having 1/3rd of land as crop field, 1/3rd
as pastures and rest left for fallow land.
6. Livestock Ranching/Grazing - The
market products of this zone would be
of two types namely, livestock and by-
products of milk like cheese, butter, etc.
which would not highly perishable. Also,
the reduction in the volume of these by-
products made them cost-effective in
terms of transportation.
Modifications in the Model
 Introduction of a navigable river into his
Isolated State.
 Elongation of production zones along
the river.
 Extension of Zone-2 in a narrow band.
 Consideration of more than one market
center or minor market centers.
 Possibility of numerous small towns of
equal importance.
  Intermixing of production zones due to
numerous towns.
Criticisms
 The conditions described in this model,
i.e., in an isolated state, are hardly
available in any region of the world.
 It is not necessary that all types of
farming systems as described by von
Thunen in his theory exist in all the
regions.
 Thunen’s measures of economic rent
and intensity are difficult to test
because of their complexity.
 Von Thunen himself has admitted that
with the change in location of
transportation or market center the
pattern of land use will also change.
 The situation will be entirely different
when there are several market centres
in a region.
 The most important of the changes
have been improvements
transportation technology; these
improvements now permit a space-time
convergence of distant places, thereby
expanding the scale of possible
economic organization
 The von Thunen model is also static and
deterministic. Today, we know that
economic growth and changes in
demand will alter the spatial patterns of
agricultural systems and land use, which
in turn influence the rate of change.
Source: Industrial Linkages
Industrial Linkages
 the contacts and flows of information
and/or materials between two or more
industrial sectors or firms
 Geographers who have rediscovered
Alfred Marshall's (1920/1890) idea of
the “industrial district,” which
underscores the predilection of firms to
cluster and co-locate geographically
tend to place emphasis on the spatial
binding forces exercised by industrial
linkages.
 industrial linkages are still a powerful
sustainer of industrial agglomerations,
and thus have fundamental impacts on
firms' location/relocation decision-
making
 material and information linkages also
serve to widen a firm's knowledge of
space, and this in turn encourages and
facilitates further spatial expansion
when needed.
 its geographical patterning is dependent
on transportation costs, development
of telecommunication technology,
standardization of production, as well
as political, institutional, and societal
factors
 divided into three:
o Backward Linkage - provides
goods and services for its
in
production activities
o Forward Linkage - refers to
links with customers purchasing
its products
o Sideways Linkage - interactions
with other firms involved in the
same processes
Source: THEORIES AND MODELS OF THE PERI-
URBAN INTERFACE: A CHANGING CONCEPTUAL
LANDSCAPE
Growth Pole Theory
  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
 related to “top-down planning” where a
centralised planning system, in
response to external demand and
innovation impulses, heavily invests in
“high technology” urban industrial
development
Trickle-Down Effect
 meant to put together various
economic forces, creating a virtuous
cycle that spreads economic growth
from urban to rural areas.
 states that fashion flows vertically from
the upper classes to the lower classes
within society, each social class
influenced by a higher social class
Backwash Effect
 if one particular area in a country starts
growing or developing, it causes people,
human capital as well as physical capital
(infrastructure, finance, machines etc.)
 negative effects on one region that
result from economic growth within
another region.
Urban Bias Critique
 The rural sector contains most of the
poverty, and most of the low-cost
sources of potential advance; but the
urban sector contains most of the
articulateness, organization, and power
 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
labour-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.
Source: Youtube Video 1
Growth Pole Theory
 Positive outcomes for economic growth
if factors such as availability of jobs,
abundant population, and wealth are
available in the community
 If growth is centralized, it creates
adverse effects in areas of periphery
Effects of Growth Pole to Adjacencies
1. Spread/Trickle-Down Effect – Positive
impacts on nearby localities exceed the
adverse or negative effects
2. Polarization/Backwash Effect – Adverse
effects of growth of core cities toward
its peripheral or surrounding regions
How Backwash Occurs
 Rural funds are invested in urban areas
to take advantage of entrepreneurial
activities and relatively rapidly growing
markets for goods and services
 Rural residents move to expanding
urban areas for improved access to jobs
and urban amenities
 Rural firms in the innovative stage of
their life cycle move to urban areas to
benefit from proximity to specialized
services, skilled labor, and expanding
markets
 Political influence and government
spending may shift to the more rapidly
growing core areas
Source: Central Place Theory
Central Place Theory
 concerned with the size, number,
functional characteristics, and spacing
of settlements, which are nodal points
for the distribution of goods and
services to surrounding market areas
 tries to explain the spatial
arrangements and distribution of
human settlements and their number
 based on the concepts of range,
threshold, and hinterlands
Range – maximum distance a person is willing
to travel to reach a service
Threshold – minimum number of people
needed to support a service
Hinterland – area surrounding a city that
interacts with the market regards the service
Source: Others
Bid Rent Curve
 a geographical economic theory that
refers to how the price and demand for
real estate change as the distance from
the central business district (CBD)
increases.
 different land users will compete with
one another for land close to the city
centre.
 based upon the idea that retail
establishments wish to maximize their
profitability, so they are much more
willing to pay more for land close to the
CBD and less for land further away from
this area.
 based upon the reasoning that the
more accessible an area (i.e., the
greater the concentration of
customers), the more profitable.
Cumulative Causation
 originated by Gunnar Myrdal and
elaborated by Douglas Massey
 implies that a given migration stream
normally increases over time.
 a change in one form of an institution
will lead to successive changes in other
institutions
 These changes are circular in that they
continue in a cycle, many times in a
negative way, in which there is no end,
and cumulative in that they persist in
each round.
 “if things were left to market forces
unhampered by any policy
interferences, industrial production,
commerce, banking, insurance, shipping
and indeed almost all those economic
activities which in developing economy
tend to give a bigger than average
return and, in addition, science, art,
literature, educational higher culture
generally – would cluster in certain
localities and regions, leaving the rest of
the country more or less in a backwater
 By whatever factors-natural, manmade,
or historical space growth gets started
in a particular regions and meets with
initial success, all sorts of economic and
non-economic activities start
concentrating there.
Core-Periphery Concept
Core Region
 a central region in an economy, with
good communications and high
population density, which conduce to
its prosperity
 associated with high wages, high
technology, and high profit inputs and
outcomes.
Peripheral Region
 outlying regions with poor
communications and sparse population