CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION 2
2. AIM OF REGIONAL PLANNING 2
3. PRINCIPLES OF REGIONAL PLANNING 3
4. APPROACHES TO REGIONAL PLANNING 3
5. REGIONAL DISPARITIES 5
6. TYPES OF REGIONAL PLANNING 6
7. DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES IN REGIONAL PLANNING 6
8. SUMMARY 9

1. INTRODUCTION
Regional planning is a branch of land use planning and deals with the
efficient placement of land use activities, infrastructure and settlement growth
across a significantly larger area of land than an individual city or town.
Regional planning addresses problems of economic, social and political
transformations at geographical scales greater than a municipality, state or even
country. The region is connected and united by cultural identity, economic
interests, geographic features, as well as common developmental and
environmental concerns. Since the independence, the need for regional planning
has arisen from changing social and economic phenomena affecting local
communities and regions throughout the country.

2. AIM OF REGIONAL PLANNING

a) Utilizing Resources in an optimal manner so as to realize the development
potential of the region over a given time-frame with minimal negative impacts in
order to achieve economic-equity.
b) Securing the planning and equitable distribution of population and economic
resources of a country.
c) The task of arranging the available land in a pattern which is most profitable and
productive to the region and the country at large.
d) Allocation of certain basic resources to generate economic activity in backward
regions for stabilization of their economy by planning an adequate number of
medium sized towns and to provide them with services, employment, and social
and cultural facilities.
e) Preventing irregular and unhealthy urban expansion.

3. PRINCIPLES OF REGIONAL PLANNING

Specific interventions and solutions will depend entirely on the needs of
each region in each country, but generally speaking, regional planning at the macro
level will seek to:
1) Resist development in flood plains or along earthquake faults. These areas
may be utilized as parks, or unimproved farmland.
2) Designate transportation corridors using hubs and spokes and considering
major new infrastructure.
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 3) Some thought into the various ‘role’s settlements in the region may play, for
example some may be administrative, with others based upon manufacturing
or transport.
4) Consider designating essential nuisance land uses locations, including waste
disposal.
5) Designate Green belt land or similar to resist settlement amalgamation and
protect the environment.
6) Set regional level ‘policy’ and zoning which encourages a mix of housing
values and communities.
7) Consider building codes, zoning laws and policies that encourage the best
use of the land.

4. APPROACHES TO REGIONAL PLANNING

The approach to regional planning can be either 'total' or 'selective'. In the
total regional planning approach an attempt is made to develop all regions of an
economy, while in the selective approach the attention is concentrated on the
development of some regions only. However, this differentiation between the 'total'
and 'selective' approaches is possible only in the context of an economy where no
national planning exists. In most of the underdeveloped countries, there is some
sort of planning for all regions, at least in the overall framework of a national plan.
Under these circumstances, it is better to define the total regional planning
approach as the one which aims at equal development rates for all regions of the
economy by providing equal investment in all of them. The selective regional
planning approach will then be one that aims at unequal development rates for the
different regions of the economy by providing unequal investments in them. When
we talk of equal investment, we mean equal investment in relation to the size of the
region (size can be determined in relation to either area or population or both).
Thus, if region 1 is double the size of region 2, it receives investment twice as
much compared with region 2. This is necessary, for otherwise equal investment
will, in fact, imply unequal investments, as is fairly obvious. For example, if
regions 1 and 2 receive the same investment, it clearly amounts to discrimination
in favor of region 2.
As for the choice between the total regional planning approach and the
selective regional planning approach, it is easy to see that the resources required by
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the former in terms of funds, physical resources, entrepreneurial and managerial
skills, technical capabilities, etc., will be beyond the reach of an underdeveloped
country. Therefore, an underdeveloped country has, of necessity, to rely on the
selective approach in its regional planning strategy. Under such an approach it will
devote more resources to the development of some regions and less resource to the
development of others.
The advantages of selective approach are many:
a) Different kind of regions for different purposes can be designated
b) A loose delineation of regional boundaries can be adopted so that they can
be changed whenever required (this introduces an element of flexibility in
planning process)
c) The regional effort can be largely dropped when the purpose has been
largely accomplished.
d) Fewer planning personnel and organization resources are required, and the
available ones can be shifted from region to region as situation changes.

According to Perloff (economist at University of California), the selection of

region for special attention will in general, be guided by the following factors:
i. The possibility of developing an outstanding untapped resource, even of a
limited type, such as a multipurpose river basin development.
ii. The solution to a severe and nationally threatening problem, such as an
extremely depressed area, a culturally backward area not in the national
mainstream, or an area threatening to break away politically.
iii. A combination of both significant potentials and tough problems, such as
planning of major metropolitan regions.
Though the adoption of the selective approach, a country can concentrate
more on the lagging regions and help them develop at a faster rate than other
regions. As a consequence of this policy, employment opportunities will expand in

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backward regions, per capita income will increase and the incentive to migrate to
prosperous regions will decline. This will also be the advantage to the prosperous
region in long run.

5. REGIONAL DISPARITIES
Regional inequalities existed in all countries at all times and it will be
ridiculous to expect that they can be abolished altogether. Complete equality
among regions is not possible because resources and human skills are unevenly
distributed over the different regions of a country and mobility of factors is
imperfect. Thus, even in USA, there is a vast underdeveloped area known as
Appalachia, characterized by rural poverty. In Canada, the maritime provinces,
southern part of Italy, northern part of Sweden, large areas in Scotland and Wales
of UK, western area of France, northern regions of Finland and Norway: have all
lagged considerably behind in the race of development and are designated
‘problem areas’. Because of the widespread poverty and below- subsistence level
of existence of the vast majority of people in many backward regions in the
underdeveloped countries, the task is twofold: (1) reduction of regional disparities,
and (2) ensuring at least a minimum level of subsistence to majority of people
inhabiting the backward areas and living below the level of subsistence.
If we take example of India, we can say that the states like Maharashtra,
Tamil Nadu, West Bengal which are considered to be industrial states, do not have
all their areas developed, instead, there majority of areas are backward areas. The
objective of ‘removal of regional inequalities’ should be re-formulated in the
Indian context as follows:
• Reducing disparities among states
• Reducing inequalities among different areas of the same state in such a way
that all the inhabitants are ensured a certain minimum level of subsistence.

6. TYPES OF REGIONAL PLANNING

The term regional planning can be said as a cover for three different types of
planning namely, interregional planning, interlocal planning and locational
planning.
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 Interregional planning deals with overall national planning to promote socio-
economic development of the nation. The interregional planning solves the
problem of interregional allocation of tasks – the problem how to outline the role
of each region in the formulation and implementation of national objectives.
Interlocal planning is done at region (state) level. It has to be developed
within the institutional framework of state government. Depending on the social,
economical and political structure of the state, the interlocal planning agency
formulates different objectives for socio-economic development.
The interregional and interlocal planning activities are representing explicit
spatial dimensions of the planning system. So, for planning of a particular location,
locational planning supports the above two types on the micro level of location.

7. DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES IN REGIONAL PLANNING

The main question is how to achieve these objectives in regional development
programmers and what strategies could be adopted for that purpose. It is different
from region to region depending upon degree of region’s natural endowments,
status of its present development problem that may have surfaced and constraints
to future development. Yet certain common factors spelt out and the total regions
although the total package that may emerge for any particular region will have its
own distinctive pattern of contents. These common factors may be stated;
1) Growth in both economic and social terms
2) Human resources assessment both quantitatively and qualitatively
3) Natural resources endowments
4) Development infrastructure
5) Inter-regional linkage and trade-off
The development strategies for any particular region would be an admixture of
these 5 factors. The features are briefly discussed below.
1) Growth in both economic and social terms:
At the national level two distinct situations are possible, one where
economic growth has achieved a high level as in the case of advanced countries
with high consequent to such economic growth, social development fairly

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advanced with high per capita income, and high level of services available to the
people. The second situation is that developing countries with low rate of growth,
less than adequate level of services which neverthless one being increased by
means of appropriate development programmes. In the former case the
development strategy, if we may continue to call it development is concerned with
sustaining the present high level of growth in the future also and if necessary even
bringing down, the high level to level at which the resources of the country would
sustain it on a long term basis. In the latter case, namely the developing countries it
is the husbanding of the resources and their exploitation so as to make it possible to
reach a higher rate of economy growth.
2) Human Resource
The economic growth possibilities are greatly depends upon the human
resources in each region, their present level of capability, equipment and talent and
the readiness with which they can be drawn into the programs of accelerated
economic development. It is not usual that in the underdeveloped areas, the
manpower is very much unprepared for the development task which they have to
undertake to achieve rapid growth. This is owing to the migration in the past of
talented people to devaluated areas impoverishing the man power in that region
and more seriously lack of attention to the development of man power. Therefore
manpower development will be the one the key tasks which will determine the
successes or otherwise the regional development strategies.
In dealing with such manpower planning and developing, it will be
necessary to recognize the constraints which the cultural milieu of that area
imposes on its developments. A hasty imposition of manpower training programs
not geared to those areas specially may tend to break down the traditional and long
standing economic and social fabric in those areas and thereby render the human
resources incapable of either adopting the traditional pattern or accepting the new
pattern with any efficiency or effort. The great sensitivity with which manpower
planning and development is developed will largely determine the success of the
regional development program. Thus the development of appropriate manpower
and skills with indigenous resources will be a crucial aspect of development
strategy.
3) Natural Resources endowment

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 The level of development of any specific region is largely dependent on its
resources endowment in terms of cultivable land, forests, water, minerals and so
on. The distribution of this resources are not uniform specially in a large regions
which are poorly endowed and regions which are richly endowed in degree of
endowments the populations in these region can also be rich or poor.
4) Infrastructure
Once the economic growth rate is stipulated, a programme for manpower
development is evolved and the needed natural endowment is secured through the
process of regionalization, the next step in the regional development strategy is to
consider infrastructure development within each region. By infrastructure we mean
here not merely water, power and transportation requirement but also more
important component of the settlement system which serves the need of economic
developmental activates and at the same time makes it possible to achieve better
social well, energy and transportation requirement and largely governed by the
pattern of economic activity envisaged in each region and the infrastructure
support which they need.

5) Inter regional linkages

At the sub national level it is obvious that we are not dealing with a region
as a unit in isolation; there are no barriers across the boundaries of the several
region hindering the flow of economic activities and social activities. Population
and essentially dealing with a very fluid unit and regional development strategy
must recognize the dynamite of the situation and appropriately provide for it. In
fact this dynamism is of utmost important as it provides for inter regional
exchanges and thereby helps to even out the differences that may be there because
of different patterns not being the same in all the achievement of a satisfactory mix
of goods and services to be provided to the people of each region and this can be
achieved through only multi lateral exchange amongst the different regions. There
may be a tendency for inter directions only and that would go against the policy of
balanced growth. The regional development strategy must foresee such trends and
structure the production pattern so as to ensure that flows are evenly distributed in
multi lateral direction.

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8. SUMMARY
It has been brought out that major of the existing approaches are largely
meant for industrialized and urbanized societies. So, this urban-industrial bias
should be corrected to suit the rural and agricultural context of developing
societies, else planning won’t be able to reach its goals.
The old concept of a region being a physical geographical area and having a
fixed boundary appears to have given way to more flexible and realistic way of
looking at the issue.
Regional planning must become a tool for generating rural employment and
removing poverty, among the marginalized people in both rural and urban areas,
not only for the few who have wealth.
The main problem is not the lack of resources but their optimum utilization.
The lack of competent people to manage planning and development processes at
lower territorial levels is very acute. The skill with the masses is not available in
those backward regions.
REFERENCES
1. Chand M. & Puri V.K.(1995),”Regional Planning in India”, Allied
Publishers Limited, New Delhi
2. Misra P.R., Urs D.V. & Natraj V.K.(1979),”Regional Planning & National
Development”, Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi
3. planningcomission.nic.in