Principles and Methods of Regional Geographical Prediction

A research methodology for purposes of geographical prediction is proposed. A region is considered the most likely object of geographical prediction, which is designed to forecast the most likely modifications of the natural environment under the impact of human activity, and the expected working and living conditions for man in the altered environment. The predictive process should focus on phenomena and processes that change through time and can be tested on the basis of known regularities and relationships. Predictive techniques may include both general scientific methods used for prediction and cause-and-effect relationships peculiar to geography. Among the most useful general techniques are extrapolation, expert evaluations, model building and comparative methods.     

Current Geographical Problems in Recreational Planning

The problem of human recreation has only relatively recently become the object of geographic research. The timeliness of work in this field arises from the growth of leisure as the level of material and cultural well-being rises in the USSR. Recreation is becoming an increasingly important sphere of human activity involving a variety of problems. The resolution of these problems requires research on environmental requirements of various forms of recreation, a typology of recreational systems, prediction of future needs for various kinds of recreation, rational management of recreational areas, and so forth. Of particular significance is the study of geographical conditions of recreation and the relationships between various forms of recreation and natural complexes of different types. A whole set of research problems is associated with the study of recreation as a branch of the Soviet economy, including the location and areal organization of recreational facilities. The new field of recreational geography is viewed as significant not only in the resolution of practical problems but also in stimulating the entire field of geographic research.     

地理空间的闭合与区域社会的统合——以环太湖地区史前社会演进过程中的地理要因分析为中心

就环太湖地区史前社会演进过程与该地区史前地理环境之间的关系这一课题而言,长期以来学界始终将探索与讨论的时代焦点置于新石器时代晚期,因为,这一时期(即崧泽文化晚期-良渚文化时期)环太湖地区史前社会经历了革命性的变化,而且在文化繁荣程度、社会复杂化水平等方面均达到了中国大陆史前文化的巅峰.从研究内容上来看,多数研究者关注的重点是自然环境变迁在环太湖地区社会变迁过程中的作用机制与影响方式.     

Regional Identity in Regional Development and Planning1

This paper analyses the regional identity and social capital formation process and components. Regional identity is the special kind of phenomenon, which forms throughout historical and territorial socialization. The great ambition of this paper is to interrelate Anssi Paasi (1986) and other cultural geographers' and sociologists' ideas with recent regional economic development and planning discussion and to enhance regional identity as a planning tool. The theoretical part describes components and the process of regional identity formation. We assume that regional identity correlates with people's volition in achieving common goals, raises their personal activity and influences due to that regional development and planning. The regional identity is crucial in securing public participation in planning. The empirical part of the paper is based on mass survey analysis.     

Empowerment Planning in Regional Development

In the planning literature, there is a tendency to contradict top-down and bottom-up policies, government and governance and instrumental and communicative planning. However, through extensive action research in regional development practice, we have learnt that there is a need for combining them in adequate planning models, and we have found strong arguments in philosophy and theory for this combination when we go to the debate on modernization and the arguments in favour of better balance between communicative and instrumental rationalities. This article is a theoretical discussion of a planning model that we have called empowerment planning. In this discussion, we regard empowerment in regional development as a combination of top-down and bottom-up processes with the variables context, mobilization, organization, implementation and learning. Planning is regarded as a combination of instrumental and communicative rationalities in an institution-building process based on Habermas' will-forming process with different discourses. We present how a planning approach with institutional, strategic, tactical and operative levels of planning can stimulate different development variables, contribute to the institution-building process and strengthen the legitimacy of the planning institution.     

区域旅游规划的创新思考

区域旅游规划在指导区域旅游产业发展中发挥着十分重要的作用,然而受各种因素的影响,区域旅游规划中的一些方面已经显得不合时宜,正面临着诸多挑战,存在着一些问题,这些都影响了区域旅游规划对地区旅游产业指导作用的发挥.因此,对区域旅游规划的创新研究显得迫在眉睫.本文分析了当前我国区域旅游规划存在的问题以及这些问题背后深层次的原因,并提出了区域旅游规划创新的一些具体建议.     

Spatial Planning in the Network Society-Rethinking the Principles of Planning in the Netherlands

The Dutch planning system rejoices a very positive reputation in the international academic planning literature. Yet both the conceptual orientation and the institutional practices of Dutch planning are eroded. New institutional practices have emerged that effectively form a 'shadow structure' to the official planning system, eroding both its effectiveness and legitimacy. The article suggests that this instititutional development is to be understood against the background of larger processes of social change to which the system has so far not responded: the coming 'network society'. In light of this analysis it is suggested that Dutch planning could enhance both its effectiveness and legitimacy by reconsidering some of the basic features of the planning system.     

论西夏的区域分野与地理形势

西夏疆域,地形狭长,东西倍于南北;地势高亢,坐西北而瞰东南。东南部是黄土高原,以横山、六盘山为屏障;北部是鄂尔多斯和阿拉善高原,以沙漠为主,有毛乌素沙漠、腾格里沙漠和巴丹吉林沙漠,间有草原,以阴山山脉为塞垣;西部是青藏高原的北缘,有绿洲曰河西走廊,以祁连山为庇护,河湟环带,山峡迂回;中部为"几字形"河套平原,以黄河、贺兰山为天堑。西夏存立之所以长久者,天时在于大国对峙的夹缝中求生存,地利在于形势要害之地置监军司,人和在于国小则无所恃而有畏惧,军民之事犹如一家。     

Structure and Strategy for Regional Learning and Innovation--Challenges for Regional Planning

Development of codified and tacit knowledge is important for capacity building in regional communities. To do so regions need active cooperation and trust building between public organizations related to research and education, private companies and organizations and the civil society so as to cross sector barriers and to mobilize to meet regional challenges proactively. Such processes must enjoy wide support in the regional community; mobilization for change must take place from below and across a broad front. Actors from outside can stimulate such processes, but they cannot take responsibility for them. The role in building out the community that is held by democratically elected bodies, make it natural to demand or expect that such actors take an initiative towards improvement, which brings challenges that are discussed later in this article.     

城市事件旅游活动的地域差异

城市事件旅游策划形式、类型、内容、强度等多方面都存在着明显的地域差异。城市规模大小、经济发展水平、政治化背景以及旅游竞争力因子等,会对事件旅游的发生、发展产生深刻的影响。     

The Place of Regional Economic Geography in the System of Geographical Sciences

The author holds that regional geography cannot be regarded as an independent geographic discipline because it lacks its own system of laws, such as the natural laws that operate in physical geography and the social laws that operate in economic geography. He agrees with the view that both physical and economic geography fall into theoretical and regional departments, and that regional studies test the localized application of the general laws formulated by the theoretical departments of the two great divisions of geography.     

Regional Planning Problems in the Soviet Far East

A variety of approaches are being recommended in regional plans for future settlements patterns in the Soviet Far East. In Magadan Oblast, the present scattered pattern of small populated places is to be superseded by greater concentration of urban population in a set of subregional service centers. In Khabarovsk Kray, different approaches are being recommended for the future development of the Khabarovsk and Komsomol'sk areas. Because limitation of the future growth of Khabarovsk is desirable, new industrial establishments are to be located in the future in nearby small towns and urban settlements of the Khabarovsk industrial district. In the Komsomol'sk area, satellite towns are to be significantly developed, giving rise to a grouped form of urban settlement, including the tin-mining center of Solnechnyy and the paper and chemical center of Amursk. In Amur Oblast, consideration is being given to the development of an iron and steel plant in the Svobodnyy area, giving rise to a city of up to 200,000 population.     

Sectoral Versus Territorial Regional Planning and Development in Norway

New regional policies in Norway and many other countries try to empower their regions through creating a balance between central governing with emphasis on redistribution of activities and resources, and local mobilization with emphasis on self reliance, innovation and learning by doing. In Norway municipalities and counties have for a long period had this double function, but we now see that the vertical policy of implementing national welfare policy has grown and become dominant. As a consequence, the horizontal policy of social mobilization has been neglected, and has to some extent been taken over by inter-municipal and interregional organizations. Normally, these organizations are in practice organized as regional development agencies. They seem to be vulnerable political institutions that seek legitimacy from--and need acceptance and support from--both territorial and sectoral governments. The regional planning process is regarded as an important tool in their political institution building process. In this paper I want to explain how regional planning and institution building in Norway in practice have moved towards a two-parallel system.     

Proposals for Regional Administrative Structure and Planning in Turkey

On a global scale, the region which not only defines economic but also social unity has been brought once again to the agenda in a manner unlike those of the past, both as a result of globalization and localization tendencies, and with arguments towards formulating a more democratic administrative structure. Conversely, although regional planning and administrative pursuits and debates have ensued in Turkey since its foundation, regional plans have never been effectively administered, a regional administrative structure requiring continuity has not been established and problems requiring solutions at the regional level have increasingly continued their presence. In this study, proposals have been developed for regional planning and regional administration in Turkey, taking into consideration not only global tendencies but also the country's related experiences along with the current circumstances, and spatial unities that would form a basis for these have been defined.     

'Euroscepticism', Political Agendas and Spatial Planning: British National and Regional Planning Policy in Uncertain Times

Over the last 10 years, European Union interest in planning has increased significantly. Although land use planning remains a function of each member state, the legal obligations imposed by the EU in the fields of environmental law, structural funds, the Common Agricultural Policy, and Trans-European Transport Networks, have all impacted upon the context of the operation of the British planning process. Many of the EU initiatives have had to be transposed into domestic legislation, while others form an important-if oft-times uncertain-framework for British policy-makers. This paper examines the relationship between the European Union's policies and initiatives as they have potentially impacted upon the British planning system and the contents of Britain's national and regional planning policy guidance to local planning authorities in the assessment period 1988-1997. But the Conservative governments adopted a 'Eurosceptic' approach to their relations with Europe and, as demonstrated within this paper, also towards spatial planning issues that caused uncertainty in practice. The research indicates that although the EU has impacted upon British planning, particularly at the local level of government, this has not been reflected at the national and regional levels in planning policy documentation, mainly because of the 'Eurosceptic' attitude of the government. Policy-makers at both the national and regional levels in England, Scotland and Wales are now recognizing the need, however, to keep apace with changes occurring simultaneously with regard to enhanced European integration, and the approach of the Blair government since 1997 has re-focused the relationship between the EU and UK over spatial planning.     

Land Use Planning Tools and Institutional Change in Germany: Recent Developments in Local and Regional Planning

This paper seeks to understand how recent social, economic and institutional developments have affected the land use planning tools and instruments that German planners have at their disposal. Although traditional planning practice was focused on the equitable distribution of services and infrastructure and managing growth within a highly structured plan approval process, planning tools at both the local and regional level have become increasingly concerned with enhancing local or regional competitiveness, primarily through the inclusion of a greater number of actors in formulating land use decisions. I argue, however, that despite these changes, the overall institutional framework, which revolves around legal and procedural concerns such as the plan approval process or the granting of building permission, has generally remained unaffected, and a significant gap exists, particularly at the regional level, between the strategic goals of regional governance and actual land use planning tools.