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.     

Regional Policy as Interaction between National Institutions and Regional Science

As a reaction to emerging regional imbalances, discussions regarding growth centre policy began in the Nordic countries during the latter part of the 1960s. At this time, a working group within the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) provided a policy option based on international theories from urban and agglomeration economics. Within the actual growth centre policies in Norway, Sweden and Finland, central elements from the EFTA concept related to the scale of the centres were, however, not adopted. Instead, growth centres were located to places that had a smaller population than the 30,000 inhabitants recommended by the EFTA concept. This outcome was related to the fact that the EFTA concept was adapted to the existing regional policy institutions. As these institutions were egalitarian and redistributive in character, the Nordic growth centre policies favoured a more dispersed settlement structure than suggested by the EFTA concept.     

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.     

Regional Devolution and Regional Economic Success: Myths and Illusions about Power

The proposition that regional devolution in and of itself will lead to economic success has become deeply embedded in beliefs and policy discourses about the determinants of regional prosperity, and in turn has led to political demands for such devolution. In this paper I seek critically to examine such claims, using the case of the north‐east of England as the setting for this examination. The paper begins with some introductory comments on concepts of power, regions, the reorganization of the state and of multi‐level governance, and governmentality, which help in understanding the issues surrounding regional devolution. I then examine the ways in which north‐east England was politically and socially constructed as a particular type of region, with specific problems, in the 1930s — a move that has had lasting significance up until the present day. Moving on some six decades, I then examine contemporary claims about the relationship between regional devolution and regional economic success, which find fertile ground in the north‐east precisely due to its long history of representation as a region with a unified regional interest. I then reflect on the processes of regional planning, regional strategies and regional devolution, and their relationship to regional economic regeneration. A brief conclusion follows, emphasizing that questions remain about the efficacy of the new governmentality and about who would be its main beneficiaries in the region. The extent to which devolution would actually involve transferring power to the region and the capacity of networked forms of power within the region to counter the structural power of capital and shape central state policies remains unclear.     

凤凰区域性防御体系

作为明清时期中央王朝政府为了解决该地区民族矛盾而建设的军事防御工程系,凤凰区域性防御体系的建设时间跨度纵贯明清,     

Regional planning in Catalonia

After 1975 the main weight of Spanish regional planning passed down to the 17 autonomous communities. This has resulted in very variable territorial planning activity. Since 1980 the Catalan government, the Generalitat, has been preparing a territorial plan for the whole of Catalonia. A draft of the plan was issued for discussion in 1993. The history of the making of the plan is analyzed, before giving an account of the plan's content. The plan received many criticisms and these are described and assessed. In particular, several paradoxes are considered: why has one of the most dynamically distinctive of Spanish autonomous communities, with a great commitment in 1980 to produce a plan, taken so long to complete the exercise? How is it that a centre‐right government has produced a plan with certain clear goals on such a long time‐scale—to 2026? And why has such apparently ambitious planning been criticized so strongly by professionals and authorities to the left of the government?     

中国的地域文化

地域文化其实就是最能够体现一个空间范围内有特点的文化类型,它表现在方言、饮食、民居、婚丧节庆、民间信仰等方面,它产生的原因是地理环境、移民、政治权力和行政区划、民族、宗教以及外来文化。地域文化构成了丰富多彩的中国文化,体现了中国文化的生命力。地域文化的研究与发展有利于保存和延续中国传统文化。随着生产力的发展,交通运输的改善,人口流动的加快,信息手段的进步,一部分地域文化将不可避免的会消失,而地域文化越来越趋同也是不可避免要发生的。以往对地域文化大多属于消极保护,如今只有积极的去做好保护工作,才能避免完全灭绝。把我们凡是能够保存的古代遗存尽可能的保存下来,不是为了我们今后能够再回到古代,而是让我们能够欣赏、怀念、追忆我们的古代文明。     

Regional Settlement Pattern Studies

This is a critical review of regional settlement pattern archaeology published in the last decade. The regional approach proves to be highly productive of new ideas and lasting results. Cultural resource/heritage databases are increasingly important. Notable advances have been made in regional studies of Paleolithic and Holocene foragers, the reciprocal relations between Neolithic communities and their regional societies, and in understanding states and empires. There are new research potentials in comparisons, macroregional analysis, long-term change, and alternative pathways. Research designs should specify systematic coverage at the regional scale and carry out spatial analysis in which social groups are the primary focus.     

Integrated Regional Geographic Atlases

The author reviews work on atlases of Soviet republics and oblasts published in 1961–64, containing maps on physical geography, population, economy and culture. He finds that these atlases suffer from a lack of practical purposefulness and inadequate coordination. These weaknesses are to be remedied in a new coordinated project of natural-resource atlases of the major republics and economic regions of the USSR initiated in 1963.     

区域史研究理论与近代东北区域史研究

从上世纪80年代以来,随着地方史研究的复兴,区域性历史研究也日益繁荣,并逐渐成为中国近代史学研究的一个新取向.在这种形势下,近代东北史的研究也逐渐突破了传统的地方史研究模式,兴起了一股区域史研究的浪潮.然而,在近代东北区域史研究中也存在着概念混淆、理论研究不足、研究方法单一等问题,只有解决好这些关键性的问题,才能更好地推动近代东北区域史研究工作向纵深方向发展.     

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.     

Equity in Regional Service Provision

Most transportation agencies stipulate that an important planning goal is to provide equitable and just public transport services. However, who is to be served and the type of service that should be provided has been ambiguous. This paper develops a methodology for examining equity in the provision of public transportation services. An approach for identifying areas in need of public transport is developed based upon the use of socio-demographic and economic information. Public transport need is then related to levels of access to service. This approach makes it possible to establish the degree to which public transport services may be considered equitable in relation to need and suitable access. A detailed analysis of the southeast Queensland region of Australia illustrates how this approach may be used to inform public transport decision making.     

Regional Weil-Being in Australia Revisited

There have been many studies of regional well-being in Australia, but few match the range of variables and spatial detail employed in this paper. Twenty two socio-economic variables were drawn from the 1986 census and used to classify all 148 Commonwealth electorates. Two procedures were adopted, both based on a principal components analysis, and compared to test the robustness of the classifications generated The first approach summed factor scores to provide a status index, and the second employed Ward's clustering algorithm. The resultant groupings are seen to both complement and reinforce each other and indicate the complex and often subtle variations in well-being across the country.     

浅谈区域地名研究

区域地名研究是从不同角度对一个地区地名的研究。它是地名学研究的组成部分 ,并对中国地名学的发展具有重要意义。区域地名研究的主要任务是 :研究一个地域地名的总体特征 ,地名的命名、含义、分类、分布、价值、演变、管理以及不同区域地名的比较等。区域地名研究的主要方法是文献考证、数据统计、比较分析、实地调查、运用地图等