Growth Pole Strategy and Regional Development Policy: Asian Experience and Alternative Approaches focuses on theoretical and practical issues in regional policy, including analytical and strategic approaches to regional development and underdevelopment problems. The selection first offers information on Asian case studies in decentralization policy and the growth pole approach, including trends in development planning in Japan and the case study of the Mizushima industrial complex. Topics include the period of post-war reconstruction; plan formulation and implementation of Mizushima industrial complex development; and interregional dispersion of development of national economy. The text also examines the case study of the Ulsan industrial complex in Korea. The book looks at decentralization policy, growth pole approach, and resource frontier development, as well as regional structure and uneven economic development in Southeast Asia; policy responses toward regional development in Southeast Asia; and growth pole approach in Southeast Asia. The text also focuses on growth strategies and human settlement in developing countries and growth poles and regional policy in open dualistic economies. The selection is a vital reference for readers interested in the theoretical and practical approaches in regional development policy.

Local and regional development is an increasingly global issue. For localities and regions, the challenge of enhancing prosperity, improving wellbeing and increasing living standards has become acute for localities and regions formerly considered discrete parts of the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ worlds. Amid concern over the definitions and sustainability of ‘development’, a spectre has emerged of deepened unevenness and sharpened inequalities in the development prospects for particular social groups and territories. Local and Regional Development engages and addresses the key questions: what are the principles and values that shape definitions and strategies of local and regional development? What are the conceptual and theoretical frameworks capable of understanding and interpreting local and regional development? What are the main policy interventions and instruments? How do localities and regions attempt to effect development in practice? What kinds of local and regional development should we be pursuing? This book addresses the fundamental issues of ‘what kind of local and regional development and for whom?’, frameworks of understanding, and instruments and policies. It outlines what a holistic, progressive and sustainable local and regional development might constitute before reflecting on its limits and political renewal. With the growing international importance of local and regional development, this book is an essential student purchase, illustrated throughout with maps, figures and case studies from Asia, Europe, and Central and North America.

Regional economic development has attracted the interest of economists, geographers, planners and regional scientists for a long time. And, of course, it is a field that has developed a large practitioner cohort in government and business agencies from the national down to the state and local levels. In planning for cities and regions, both large and small, economic development issues now tend to be integrated into strategic planning processes. For at least the last 50 years, scholars from various disciplines have theorised about the nature of regional economic development, developing a range of models seeking to explain the process of regional economic development, and why it is that regions vary so much in their economic structure and performance and how these aspects of a region can change dramatically over time. Regional scientists in particular have developed a comprehensive tool-kit of methodologies to measure and monitor regional economic characteristics such as industry sectors, employment, income, value of production, investment, and the like, using both quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis, and focusing on both static and dynamic analysis. The 'father of regional science', Walter lsard, was the first to put together a comprehensive volume on techniques of regional analysis (Isard 1960), and since then a huge literature has emerged, including the many titles in the series published by Springer in which this book is published.

This first edition of the OECD Territorial Outlook examines RECENT policy developments in the areas of urban, rural and regional affairs in OECD countries.

Across Europe, regional development agencies (RDAs) have become a central feature of regional policy, both as innovative policy-makers and as the implementers of programmes and initiatives originating from the national or European level. By drawing on a combination of conceptual reflection, surveys, comparative research, and systematic use of critical case studies, this book provides a new point of reference by identifying key features of the current, and, indeed next, generation of regionally-based economic development organisations.

Canadian regional development today involves multiple actors operating within nested scales from local to national and even international levels. Recent approaches to making sense of this complexity have drawn on concepts such as multi-level governance, relational assets, integration, innovation, and learning regions. These new regionalist concepts have become increasingly global in their formation and application, yet there has been little critical analysis of Canadian regional development policies and programs or the theories and concepts upon which many contemporary regional development strategies are implicitly based. This volume offers the results of five years of cutting-edge empirical and theoretical analysis of changes in Canadian regional development and the potential of new approaches for improving the well-being of Canadian communities and regions, with an emphasis on rural regions. It situates the Canadian approach within comparative experiences and debates, offering the opportunity for broader lessons to be learnt. This book will be of interest to policy-makers and practitioners across Canada, and in other jurisdictions where lessons from the Canadian experience may be applicable. At the same time, the volume contributes to and updates regional development theories and concepts that are taught in our universities and colleges, and upon which future research and analysis will build.

This book emphasizes the need for experimenting with more deliberate and rigorous policy processes to attain balanced regional development, which can promote both equity and efficiency in India’s development discourse. The institutional mechanisms for dealing with regional imbalance in India have not been very successful so far. With rising discrepancies in development, demand for autonomy continues along with a new dimension of regionalism arising from submerged identity along with political and economic aspirations, which demanded new channels for solution. So far, attempts to create space for autonomy have possibly not optimally accommodated the conceptual mechanisms like equity and democratic process. Thus democratizing policy process using six pillars of voice: knowledge, objective, fundamental values, implementation framework and public awareness can ensure a better policy outcome for dealing with the persistent challenges of regional disparity in India. This book further focuses on the need for democratizing the policy process for regional development through discussion and inclusion. Such a transition needs innovation in policy regime, which can be attained through following six pillars (i) Democratic voice of stakeholders in policy development and implementation; (ii) Clear policy objectives that advance the common good, based on voice; (iii) Unbiased, sound and comprehensive knowledge and data bases. (iv) Consistency with constitutional values; (v) A sound implementation framework ensuring user-friendliness, transparency and rationality of decision-making processes, effective grievance redress, clear accountability and independent evaluation; (vi) Public awareness and support of policies with relevant and public participation in implementation.

Many European, Latin American and Asian countries have experience with regional policies aiming to reduce regional disparities in GDP per capita and/or to develop problem regions helping to recover from its GDP decrease. Spain represents, without any doubt, a very rich and interesting case-study regarding regional problems and regional development policies. The aim of this book is not only to analyze the regional policies practiced, their objectives, instruments and effects, but to provide an in-depth analysis on the impact of investments in infrastructure, human capital and other factors, as well as the advances accomplished in terms of productivity, convergence and regional competitiveness. The book particularly wants to impart knowledge, which can be useful for other countries’ policy makers, as well as for academics, researchers and consultants. The contributions selected have been written by prestigious Spanish academics, most of them also having practical experience in the field.