Regional planning deals with the efficient placement of land-use activities,

infrastructure, and settlement growth across a larger area of land than an

individual city or town.
Regional Planning is multidisciplinary approach aims at holistic development
of a region.
According to Mackaye “Regional Planning is an attempt at discovering the
plans of the nature for the attainment of Man’s ends upon the Earth”.According
to Muniford, “Regional Planning asks not how wide an area can be brought
under the aegis of the Metropolis, but how the population and civic facilities can
be distributed so as to promote and stimulate a vivid and creative life
throughout a whole region”.
Regional Planning is a specific type of planning, based on, specific planning
structure for inducing public action aimed at societal well being. It implies that
Regional Planning is concerned fundamentally with the society in the context of
space.
Regional Planning considered as a geo-technology for comprehensive
development of regions through rational transformation of regional space. It
seeks to recognize space more rationally with a view to achieving greater
regional integration Regional Planning at different spatial levels ensures the
fuller development of the potentialities of the smallest unit, consisting a region.
Regional Planning should viewed as essentially a means to strength the national
economy through the mechanism of Regional Planning by evaluating the
potentials of sub regions and to develop them to the best advantage of the nation
a whole.

The following are the regional planning processes

Preparatory / exploration or identification phase
Find as early as possible a decision between centralized or decentralized
solutions – this make it easier to regard it in the further processes and finally
design of the buildings Increasing the planning security for the providers and
developers should be smart in nature Specific, measurable, achievable,
relevancy and have a time frame
Feasibility / planning phase
The feasibility studies allow preparing the necessary tasks to make the urban
plots suitable for construction. The planning of the plots and the realization of
the shared equipment are entrusted to the developer through the concession
contract whereby the city transfers the project management competence to a
developer. The project manager will be responsible for the design and
implementation of the urban project: acquisition or control of land, servicing of
the land, building of equipment and networks and marketing of lots. The
Planning Act does not specifically provide for specific provisions for the
integration of environmental objectives into urban development concessions.
Formal planning / zoning phase
Each urban project has to combine specific political commitments and specific
environmental situation. In some cases, energy is a key item regarding the
contest (important local production potential) and the political vision (carbon
neutral district, positive energy district), but it is essential to fix a basis of
minimum requirements for any urban project. In addition, Energy is generally
assessed in the preliminary studies but the results of the assessment are not
specific enough to lead to an efficient and comprehensive energy choice for the
urban project. It is once again necessary to fix specific and detailed
requirements on both the vision and the studies to carry out.
Design and implementation phase
The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for urban development projects
covers all environmental topics. Energy relevant topics are emissions, mobility,
land use and energy concept. It is mandatory for urban development projects
with a surface of at least 15 ha and a gross floor area of more than 150.000 m².

Operational phase
monitoring is a web based database used for performance reporting and
monitoring with regard to the sustainability requirements in the development
agreement. The main objective of the database is to enable a more systematic,
structured and fair follow-up process and to provide a tool to gather and store all
information related to that process in one single place. The tool also provides
the opportunity to withdraw results from registered data to different kinds of
reports that can either give a quick overview or more in-depth results of the
performance on a number of sustainability indicators.
The need of Regional Planning can be discussed under the following broad
theme;
1. To minimize the Regional Disparities: There are wide Regional Disparities in
the levels of resource utilization as well as in the levels of development. In
order to minimize the Regional Disparities, the developmental processes need to
be channelized in the right direction and need to plan properly. Such
developmental processes shall yield best results if these are based upon the
principles of Regional Planning.
2. To resolve the Critical Problems: broadly speaking, the way the
environmental conditions are being degraded and are posing a serious threat to
the human welfare, Regional Planning is becoming more and more of necessity
rather than a matter of choice.
3. To address the problems of rapidly increasing population: The rapidly
increasing population, particularly during the last 3-4 decades, has increased the
pressure on world resources tremendously. This has also altered the population-
resources relationship in many areas. Some of poorly endowed resource region
are heavily populated now. This phenomena posing serious threat to not only
human habitability but also to the physical environment. To ensure better
habitability conditions as well as for the survival and continued welfare of
physical environment, the developmental processes should have to be based
upon the principles of Regional Planning.
4. To ensure the integrated development of Functional Regions: the regional
boundaries of many functional regions(display strong functional Unity) do not
conform with administrative boundaries. The City-periphery regions and the
drainage basin region are typical examples. The NCR of India has its areal
spread into four states; similarly, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has its
spread in seven states of USA. In order to achieve an integral development of
all such regions without wasting the limited resources, all developmental
planning should have to be based upon the principles of Regional Planning

5. To recognize the futuristic Regional Realities : Rapid development in the

field of information and communication technology all over the world resulted
in (a) revolution in the field of transportation and communication, (b) broken
the rural isolation and has increased the interaction between rural-urban
communities (c) increased the volume of traffic and trades (d) increased the
population mobility both inter regional and intra regional (e) finally given rise
to new regional boundaries with intensified integration. All these developments
necessitate the futuristic planning efforts. We must recognize these regional
realities.
The Principles of Regional Planning are becoming more and more critically
important to recognize these regional realities.
6. Regional Planning for less developed Countries: Most of the developing
nations are poorly endowed and have innumerable task in hand in the process of
economic reconstruction and transformation. Appalling poverty, poor living
condition, unemployment, urban overcrowding, inadequate and inefficient
health and sanitation, education, housing, etc., these are some of the
characteristics of these nations. Moreover, they are technologically backward as
well. Since Regional Planning addresses itself to the host of problems, it has
special significance for the less developed countries.
7. Regional Planning for Newly Independent Countries: The 20th century
witnessed the creations of newly independent countries. These nations have
their own aspirations priorities and problems. Their colonial infrastructure
sometimes fails to meet the requirements of the changed scenarios. The
developmental processes based upon the fundamental principles of Regional
Planning alone can take care of the changing conditions in all such newly
independent nations.
8. Regional Planning needs arises due to failing of all other types of Planning: It
has already been realized by the world community that all other types of
planning i.e. sectoral Regional, functional planning, area planning etc has failed
to deliver the desired result. Regional Planning has displayed its multi-purpose
usefulness.