Regional Planning

Earlier it was just natural resource planning but then later

To ensure optimal utilization of space and optimal distribution pattern of human

activities

Role of regional planning is passive

To formulate measures to induce and assist the growth of certain regions while
restraining the growth of others

A REGION IS A SUB SYSTEM WITHIN A SYSTEM AND IF SUB-SYSTEM DEVELOP GREATER INTER-CONNECTIVITY, THE
GREATER WILL BE THE EFFICIENCY OF THE SYSTEM
Definition by Keeble “ An area that is large enough to enable substantial changes in the distribution of population and
employment to take place within its boundaries”

Definition by Klassen “ An area that is large enough to take investment decisions of an economic size, must be able to
supply its own industry with labour, should have homogeneous economic base, atleast one growth point”

Definition by Boudeville “ it is an area displaying some coherence or unit of economic decisions”

Brown suggests .that, "a region may be composed of areas or locational entities which in some specified respect are
homogeneous. It is further stated that such areas or locational entities need to be contiguous to each other and the
variables upon which the region is defined are attributes of the areas being grouped. Such regions are termed as
uniformed regions”.
Amadeo defined, is a region as a set of location units homogeneous with respect to their values on a particular set
of characteristics”

No matter which concept of region is considered for discussion in general, one has to define a definite physical
boundary in each case. In practice the whole problem of regionalization boils down to determination of boundary of
the region. This task of determination of boundary in a given situation is called regional delineation.
The planners realised with increased degree of conviction that any urban settlement is in fact an integral
part of the broader region to which it belongs.
Accordingly, any planning exercise by treating the urban, settlement to be independent unit, or an isolated
conglomeration of structures, could suffer from certain kind of partiality bias to the extent that its multifarious
dependence with its hinterland is not taken into account while determining its activity mix.

If one examines the process of evolution of cities and towns ,over time one finds that in most cases, towns
and such settlements emerged and grew owing to certain socio-economic factors. These factors could be identified to
be centres of administration, centres of religion and learning, centres of industrial activity or commercial
preponderance, existence of port facilities, etc.

In general urban
settlements provide certain facilities and amenities to the people
belonging to its hinterland and in return receive such essential supplies as manpower, agricultural
commodities, industrial inputs, etc.

In this way, any urban settlement can be seen to be Integral part of its hinterland and its relationship with
hinterland could be interpreted as a convenient and essential give and take phenomenon in the
absence of which both urban settlement as well as hinterland would suffer in various ways. Any planning
exercise in context to urban settlement, therefore, must consider its relationship with its hinterland.
 TYPES OF REGION

In Regional economics Homogeneous, Formal regions

Nodal, polarized, Heterogeneous and functional regions
Planning and Programming regions

In Multi level planning Macro regions

State regions
Meso regions
Minor regions

In stages of development Developed regions

Backward and Depressed regions
Neutral and Intermediate regions

In activity analysis Mineral regions

Manufacturing regions
Urban or congested regions
 TYPES OF REGION

Homogeneous, Formal regions Formal regions with similar type of characteristic like climate,
topography etc.or economic, socio-cultural and physical homogeneity

Nodal, polarized, Heterogeneous and functional All types of flows will be very thick near to centre but will
regions reduce down as it moves away from centre. NODES

Functional regions with centre’s and nodes emerging in

space, closely connected and interdependent functionally
with zone of influence.

Formal regions with similar type of characteristic like climate,

Planning and Programming regions
topography etc.or economic, socio-cultural and physical
homogeneity
 HOMOGENEOUS REGIONS

A HOMOGENEOUS ECONOMIC REGION MAY HAVE DIFFERENT

Economic homogeneity PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Structure of employment
Occupational pattern
Net migration
Density of population
The resource and industrial structure

Bouge and Beale attempted to draw up homo-geneous regions on the basis of broad geographical areas of
specialization. They have conceived homogeneity of region primarily in terms of agriculture. Botkin (6) considered
homogeneous regions on the basis of per capita income levelsj
 TYPES OF REGIONS
Nodal, polarized, Heterogeneous and functional regions
The functional inter relationships are usually revealed in flows of people, factors, services, commodities or communication

The polarization flows, rate of flow and direction of flows

Spatial dimension of nodal region, its relationship with its hinterlands and settlement heirarchy

Dominant node, growth foci, growth centre’s and nuclie

The nodal region is a system working within the region itself containing its sensitive variables. Nodal regions
emphasizes the interdependence of different components within the region rather than inter-regional relationships
between homogeneous regions. Since the functional linkages between spatial units are limited by space, nodal regions
usually take explicit account of the distance factor as revealed,

Data on telephone calls and shopping trips indicate indirect

linkages of flows, within a given region.
 TYPES OF REGIONS

Functional regions are associated with its basic economic activity. The hand book of census categorises towns and
cities into various functional regions. They include service centres, industrial centres and commercial centres. One

Coats and Hunt (12), They mapped all journey to-work interactions
using arrows to indicate the strength and directions of flows; then
subjectively set functional region boundaries on the criterion of
minimising interac? tions taking place across boundaries.

Russett recommended (40) factor analysis to matrix containing standardised measures of the flow on association
between places, functional groupings being indicated by the resulting factor loading pattern. A different approach to
similar data as mentioned above is presented in the work of Brams (8). A functional region, therefore may be identified
by assigning a priority, the characteristic feature, such as, commercial, industrial and service classes of workers. The
functional regions are the basis to identify growth centres in Gujarat and elsewhere.

Programme or policy regions include backward areas, tribal areas in case of regions in India. One may even think of
certain areas to declare as ' no industry district and thereby Government policy or programmes can be enforced for the
development of entire region. In certain cases, health campaign, credit campaign are instrumental in determining
programme or policy region.
 TYPES OF REGIONS

An urban region can be thought to exist around the urban settlement under consideration.

Any city or town provides certain facilities and amenities that normally do not exist in that scale in the rural
settlements around it.

The rural settlements in turn provide certain goods and service to their urban areas.

These bilateral relations bind both the urban. Area and the rural settlements surrounding it in the form of mutual
interdependence for the benefit of either group.

Intensity of such interdependence is not same everywhere around the city. This is a question as to tow far should one
go in different directions from the city or town to define an urban region for planning purposes.
 TYPES OF REGIONS
Planning regions / Administrative regions
Administrative convenience based on political realities and demarcated boundaries, depending upon the multi level
planning in the country
The administrative regions refer to States, Districts, Talukas, Blocks and Villages. In the recent past area development
authorities have been set up in case of ‘these administrative regions.

The best definition highlights or emphasize the factors of homogeneity, nodality and administrative convenience in a
right perspective.

Geographically it should be a contiguous unit.

 AUTHORS, PLANNERS

According to Sir Patrick Geddes, place studies without work or folk is a matter of atlas and maps. Fclk without place
and work are dead, hence anthropological collections and books contain too much of mere skulls and weapons. So too
for economies, the study of work apart from definite place and definite folk, comes down to mere abstraction.

"Place-Work-Folk” are synonymous with environment, economy, and society. These three constitute the interdependent
elements of a single process, acting, reacting and interacting.

PLACE ENVIRONMENT

WORK ECONOMY

FOLK SOCIETY
 AUTHORS, PLANNERS

According to Prof. VLS Prakasa Rao, the systems of a region is well explained. May be in one region, say a river delta,
the laws of the environment demand intimate adaptation of landuse, while in another, a metropolitan or an industrial
region, work and folk transform the environment to meet their specific demands... In a region for regional planning, the
different regional factors interact and operate in mutual actions and reactions, any change in one normally leads to
changes in others, thus setting up a chain reaction. In fact there is a two-way chain reaction, one internal, within the
region, and the other external, with the neighbouring or farther regions.

J.Friendmann and W.Alonso viewed the region to encompass, the decision-making and planning process systems,
therefore, regional planning is made synonymous with regional development policy at the national level (balanced
integration) with a process of decision making and design in the elaboration of investment projects at the regional level
and with economic development programmes for sub-national areas. There is, in addition, an intimation that regional
planning has something to do with metropolitan development, resource management and agricultural and community
improvement.
 AUTHORS, PLANNERS, ORGANISATION

According to OECD, attention to problems on a regional scale provides a means of counter acting centripetal forces
inherent in economic and technological development which tend to widen the existing disparities between one part of a
country and other.

In general one has to define the objectives very clearly before beginning with the task of regional planning. In fact the
type of region has to be got settle down even earlier than the objective that can be associated with that.

For illustration let us assume that we are interested in planning for an urban region as spelled out earlier, and let this
region be a part of Indian Union. In that case the planning objectives for India as a whole are also be the objective of
urban region in question. The objective of growth, employment, economic justice, etc, which constitute National
objectives of India have to be achieved through any planning exercise that one may like to make for an urban region
belonging to India.
 TASK FOR REGIONAL PLANNING PREPERATION

The first task Involved in planning for such a region is to determine the boundary of the region. The boundary in
turn has to be determined by considering all the variables pertaining to interdependence between variables and its
hinterland resource posi? tion, strength and weakness cf various kinds, social preference of community in question,
geographical constraint in terms of topography, soil, variety, altitude of the terrain, climatic condition, etc. No general
description of these variables can be made in terms of specific variables. This has to

The next task involved in planning the urban region is to decide as to which piece of land in region should be used
for what purpose and with what ultimate results.' This task essentially involves determining land 'use plan of the
entire area, lying within regional boundary. The land use emerging in this way should ensure a priority consideration,
that the objectives of regional planning are met as a result of such a land use planning.

Even after successfully determining the landuse mix, the task of regional planning is only half way. Thereafter next issue
that arises in actual situation relates to phasing-the development of land falling within the urban region.

For such an action plan emerging in context to a given city or region one could require an appropriate organisation to
implement the plan as envisaged. This task of choice of appropriate organisational set up to carry out plan is
thought equally important and deserve appropriate attention. Though this task is essentially a task related to
implementation of any regional planning blue print.
 DELINEATION
DETERMINATION OF BOUNDARIES OF REGIONS

A common theme in this theorising is a conception of the relational

nature of space (Graham and Marvin 2001; Healey 2007; Massey
2005). This argues that space should not be seen as a neatly nested
hierarchy, with small areas within larger ones up to the region,
nation and continent. The contrasting vision is of a more complex
cross- cutting articulation of scales or spaces, giving a much
greater fuzzyness to borders, boundaries and more traditional
bounded spaces.

Together 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 (to evoke the systems approach of the 1960s and 1970s;
McLoughlin 1969; Chadwick 1971). Traditionally this was
indeed the first and main foundation for regional planning
exercises in the twentieth century, with the typical focus being
on labour market and travel to work areas.
 Schematic overview of the various ‘levels’ of activity

5 1 Levels 1 and 2 can be seen as examples of regional policy/inter-

regional planning – with a primary focus on reducing differences in
5 relative economic prosperity between regions.
4
2
Levels 3 and 4 can be seen as examples of regional strategic
5 planning/intra-regional planning, where the focus has been more
5 on the distribution of land uses/activities at the regional and sub-
regional levels.
4 1
3
5

1 EU level spatial planning (e.g. ESDP;

Regional Policy)

2 UK inter-regional planning (e.g.

Assisted Areas Policy)
A common argument hangs around the intensity and density of
3 UK intra-regional planning interaction, brought by the new transport forms of the twentieth
(e.g. South East RPG; and RSS)
century, making much larger functional regions, and therefore
4 Sub-regional planning counselling for much larger regional planning units
(e.g. Milton-Keynes Sub-Regional Plan)

5 Structure planning
(e.g. Oxfordshire Structure Plan)
 Problem regions and the goals and strategy of UK regional policy
Underdeveloped regions:
Depressed industrial regions:
Pressured/congested regions
Which are sparsely populated, heavily dependent on primary activities (farming,
fishing, forestry, mining and quarrying), with poor accessibility and services.
They normally suffer from high unemployment rates and out-migration of the
young and skilled.
They suffer from the decline of key industries, such as coal-mining, shipbuilding,
textiles and iron and steel and the lack of new growth industries. The poor
industrial structure is often associated with a poor physical environment. As a
result the regional economic base is unable to utilise regional resources to the
full, and the regions suffer from the usual symptoms of high rates of
unemployment and out- migration, and low activity rates, growth rates and levels
of income.
They are in many respects the reverse of the other problem regions. While they
have low unemployment rates, high income levels and attract in-migrants, they
also face some of the costs of success. These include environmental problems,
commuting and congestion costs and high factor costs, including land, housing
and labour, all of which may lead to a declining quality of life.
The delineation of assisted areas
Measures to encourage industry to move to the assisted areas
Measures directed at labour mobility, and other more general measures

Under the Distribution of Industry Act, 1945, the Special Areas were expanded and renamed Development Areas.

Following further tinkering of legislation in the 1950s, the Development Areas in 1960, delineated almost exclusively by
the criterion of unemployment, covered slightly less than 20 per cent of the UK area, with a population of about seven
million.

By 1972, this simple ‘blanket approach’ had been replaced by a more sophisticated hierarchy of Special Development
Areas, Development Areas and Intermediate Areas, based on multiple criteria including unemployment, and
covering more than 50 per cent of the country and including a population of approximately 25 million. Special
Development Areas were those areas suffering from the worst problems of industrial decline – many as a result of a
decline in the coal-mining industry.
UK visionaries. Ebeneezer Howard, in his Garden Cities of Tomorrow (see Howard 1946) proposed the establishment
of a cluster of new towns linked to a central city to deal with the problems of the sprawling
nineteenth century cities such as London and Glasgow. These multi-centred regional clusters were to
be separated from their cities by greenbelts, and were to contain both jobs and homes. However, apart
from the early garden cities such as Letchworth and Welwyn, there was little immediate development
of Howard’s ideas and parochial in-fighting between local authorities limited attempts to co-ordinate
the growth and interaction of towns.

A major impetus came in the early 1940s. The Barlow Report (HMSO 1940) realised the
advantages of regional planning and the Scott Report on issues in rural areas (HMSO 1942) also
advocated a regional approach

On ground emerged a series of advisory regional and sub-regional plans, many produced by Professor
Patrick Abercrombie. Indeed Abercrombie had been active for many years prior to the Barlow Report
developing an approach to the production of predominantly sub-regional plans for many areas of the
country

Compared to regional plans, sub-regional plans related to smaller areas and their production was more in the sphere of
local authorities. One type of sub-regional study was carried out for local planning authorities, normally by an
independent planning team, to co-ordinate the future natural growth or inter- action of large towns and cities.
 DELINEATION OF REGIONS

DETERMINATION OF BOUNDARIES
REGIONS

FORMAL REGIONS Criteria of uniformity in FUNCTIONAL REGIONS Criteria of Hetrogeneity

localities and functional
interdependence
CRITERIA MAPPING – SINGLE CRITERIA

WEIGHTED INDEX METHOD - MULTIPLE CRITERIA MAPPING FUNCTIONAL SPATIAL CONFIGURATION

One criteria FIXED INDEX METHOD FLOW ANALYSIS

GRAVITATIONAL ANALYSIS
More than one VARIABLE INDEX METHOD
comparable criteria’s

More than one non CLUSTER METHOD

comparable criteria’s
DETERMINATION OF BOUNDARIES DELINEATION OF FORMAL REGIONS
CRITERIA MAPPING – SINGLE CRITERIA

REGION X

REGION Y

REGION Z
D A

PER CAPITA

CRITERIA 3
CRITERIA 1

CRITERIA 2
C

LOCALITY
B
A PC A = 1000 A A A

E B PC B = 1200 B

C PC C = 1000 C C C

D PC D = 900 D

E PC E = 1000 E E E

CRITERIA : PC = 1000, PC < 1000, PC = 1000-1200

 DELINEATION OF FORMAL REGIONS
Number of characteristics common to regions are chosen for eg : per capita
income, unemployment, rate of industrialization WEIGHTED INDEX METHOD - FIXED

MORE THAN ONE FEATURE

Arbitary weight is given to each index and a single weighted mean is obtained WHICH ARE COMPARABLE
for each region

Continguous region with similar indices are grouped together to form a region
Per Capita income <101 = 1
100-125 = 2
TOWN A TOWN B TOWN C TOWN D TOWN E
>125 = 3

PER CAPITA 100 125 90 135 130 Unemployment >86% = 3

INCOME
1 2 1 3 3 80-85% = 2
<80% = 1
UNEMPLOY 90% 85% 88% 75% 70%
MENT
3 2 3 1 1

Literacy 70% 75% 80% 85% 90% Literacy <75% = 1

76-80% = 2
1 1 2 3 3 >85% = 3
 TOWN A TOWN B TOWN C TOWN D TOWN E

5 5 6 7 7

A=5
PER 100 125 90 135 130
CAPITA
INCOME 1 2 1 3 3
D=7
C=6
UNEMPL 90% 85% 88% 75% 70%
OYMENT
3 2 3 1 1
B=5

Literacy 70% 75% 80% 85% 90%

1 1 2 3 3

E=7
 DELINEATION OF FORMAL REGIONS
WEIGHTED INDEX METHOD – VARIABLE

REGION A + B

ECONOMIC HEALTH

WHEAT - REGION COAL REGION

Variable weights are assigned to highlight different level of
activities in different regions.

REGION A REGION B The weight given to each activity in each region is

different and inaccordance with the value or the volume
regionally produced.

Weight of wheat region will be more in Region A and

Weight of coal industry will be more in Region B while
delineating the region for economic health
 DELINEATION OF FORMAL REGIONS

When VARIABLE ARE NOT COMPARABLE

CLUSTER METHOD BY SUPERIMPOSITION AND

MAPPING TECHNIQUES

The method is used to detect the homogeneous character of the structures of

different regional units.

Regional divisions identified by Spate and learmonth

V.Nath for resource development regions Variables are too many, particularly when they are not having
strong interrelations
Asok Mitra of ranking of Indian Districts
Quantitative techniques with mapping superimposition

Composite index of development by combining other indexes