REGIONAL PLANNING

CONCEPTS & THEORIES

MULTILEVEL PLANNING IN INDIA

Types of regions:
Centre
States
Districts
Blocks
Villages

The First Level

Central Government
Plan Formulation:
The head of the government is the President who acts on the advice of Council of
Ministers binding. Actual formulation done by the Planning Commission at the
Centre with Prime Minister as its chairman with some members of the Cabinet & 3-4
full time professional experts as members.
Three tier set-up:
1.
The Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers, Ministers of State, Deputy Ministers and
Parliamentary Secretaries
2.
Secretary heading the secretariat organization of the ministry,
3.
The executive organization of the department, comprising the ministry

The Second Level

States
Governor as the executive head appointed by the President of India. Acts on binding
advice by the Council of Ministers headed by the Chief Minister.
Departments of Council of Ministers:
a)
Development Departments agriculture, animal husbandry, rural development,
public works & industries
b)
Social welfare departments education, health, social welfare
c)
Coordinating departments home, revenue, finance & planning
Council of Ministers works through the secretariat assisting in policy making, and
discharging their legislative responsibilities, coordination of policies and programmes,
supervision and control of expenditure, efficient running of administration etc.

The Third Level

District
Collector (deputy commissioner in some states) as the head of overall district
administration
Responsible for maintaining law and order in the district
Coordinator among various departments: Agriculture, Irrigation, Animal Husbandry,
Dairying, Forestry, Industries, Public Works,
Cooperation, Education, Medical & Public Health,
Social Welfare, Panchayati Raj etc.

& Autonomous Agencies like electricity board, state transport and special
agencies for development programmes.
Complexities in the role of Collector for lack of clearly defined set of tasks which
differs in different states.
Planning may also be performed by a District Planning Officer under overall
charge of the Collector or by the Collector himself.
Some sort of district plans ensuring integration with other schemes have to be
prepared under overall guidance of the Collector or under a specified committee
set up for the purpose.
Development tasks looked after by the Zila Parishad.

The Fourth & Fifth Levels

Blocks & Villages
Levels of Implementation
Set-up of Block Development Officer assisted by 5 Extension Officers one each in the
field of agriculture, animal husbandry, cooperation, panchayats, and rural industries.
Other staff Overseer, a Social Education Organiser, a Progress Assistant & Village
Level Workers.
In Blocks, also Veterinary Stockmen, a Medical Officer, a Sanitary Inspector, and a
Lady Health Visitor some of them with supporting staff.
Extension Officers for programmes relating to women & children in some Blocks.
Development tasks at Block level looked after by the Panchayat Samiti.
At the lowest level, Village development and welfare tasks are entrusted with the
Panchayat.

Panchayati Raj Institutions

Distirct Level

Zila Parishad
President

President
Panchayat
Samiti

Panchayat
Samiti

President
Panchayat
Samiti

Sarpanch

Sarpanch

Sarpanch

Panchayat

Panchayat

Panchayat

Village

Village

Village

Block Level

Village Level

Aspects of planning
Urban city and town planning integrates land use planning and
transportation planning to improve the built, economic and social
environments of communities. Regional planning includes a
larger environment at a less detailed level.

Aesthetics
Safety
Slums
Decay
Reconstruction and renewal
Transport
Suburbanization
Environmental factors
Light and sound

Aesthetics

Avoid excessive human-made clutter in the visual environment,

Solutions for tensions between peripheral growth, housing density and
new settlements.
Balancing of mixing tenures and land uses, versus distinguishing
geographic zones where different uses dominate.
Successful planning considers urban character, local identity, respects
heritage, pedestrians, traffic, utilities and natural resources & hazards.
Planners can help manage the growth of cities, applying tools like zoning
and growth management to manage the uses of land.
Historically, many of the cities now thought the most beautiful are the
result of dense, long lasting systems of prohibitions and guidance about
building sizes, uses and features.
Allowing substantial freedoms, yet enforce styles, safety, and often
materials in practical ways.
Many conventional planning techniques are being repackaged using the
contemporary term smart growth

Safety
Urban planners must consider the threats of floods and the risks of storm surges.. If the
dangers can be localised then the affected regions can be made into parkland or green
belt, often with the added benefit of open space provision.
Extreme weather, flood, or other emergencies can often be greatly mitigated with
secure emergency evacuation routes and emergency operations centres.
Many planning policies ignore personal tensions, forcing individuals to live in a
condition of perpetual extraneity to their cities. Many people therefore lack the comfort
of feeling "at home" when at home.
urban environment can influence individuals' obedience to social rules and level of
power. The socio-architecture theories often say that psychological pressure develops
in more densely developed, unadorned areas. This stress causes some crimes and
some use of illegal drugs.
The antidote is usually more individual space and better, more beautiful design in
place of functionalism. Planners will do well to consider "traffic calming" or
"pedestrianisation" as ways of making urban life more pleasant.

Slums
Planning resources and strategies are needed to address the problems of slum
development. Many planners are calling for slum improvement,
Slum were often "fixed" by clearance. However, more creative solutions are beginning
to emerge such as VAMBAY program, where established slum-dwellers build proper
houses, schools, and community centers with little aide in the form of government
money, on the land on which they have been illegally squatting.

Decay
Urban decay is a process by which a city, or a part of a city, falls into a state of
disrepair and neglect. It is characterized by depopulation, economic restructuring,
property abandonment, high unemployment, fragmented families, political
disenfranchisement, crime, and desolate urban landscapes.

Reconstruction and renewal

Areas devastated by war or other calamities challenge urban planners.
Resources are scarce.
The existing population has needs.
Buildings, roads, services and basic infrastructure like power, water and
sewerage are often damaged, but with salvageable parts.
Historic, religious or social centers also need to be preserved and reintegrated into the new city plan.
A prime example of this is the capital city of Kabul, Afghanistan, which, after
decades of civil war and occupation, has regions of rubble and desolation.
Despite this, the indigenous population continues to live in the area,
constructing makeshift homes and shops out of salvaged materials.
Any reconstruction plan, needs to be sensitive to the needs of its
community and its existing culture and businesses.

Transport
Transport within urbanized areas presents unique problems. The density
of an urban environment increases traffic, which can harm businesses
and increase pollution unless properly managed. Parking space for
private vehicles requires the construction of large parking garages in high
density areas. This space could often be more valuable for other
development.
Good planning uses transit oriented development, which attempts to
place higher densities of jobs or residents near high-volume
transportation. For example, some cities permit commerce and multistory apartment buildings only within one block of train stations and
multilane roads, and accept single-family dwellings and parks farther
away.
Residential area densities can sometimes cause traffic jams for
automobiles, yet they are often too low to be commercially served by
trains or light rail systems. The conventional solution is to use buses, but
these and light rail systems may fail where automobiles and excess road
network capacity are both available, achieving less than 2% ridership.

Suburbanization
Declining satisfaction with the urban environment leads to continuing migration to
smaller towns and rural areas (so-called urban exodus).
Successful urban planning supported Regional planning can bring benefits to a much
larger hinterland or city region and help to reduce both congestion along transport
routes and the wastage of energy implied by excessive commuting.

Environmental factors
Environmental protection and conservation are of utmost importance to many
planning systems across the world.
Not only are the specific effects of development to be mitigated, but attempts are
made to minimize the overall effect of development on the local and global
environment.
This is commonly done through the assessment of Sustainable urban infrastructure
and microclimate.
In most advanced urban or village planning models, local context is critical.
Environmental planners focus now on smaller and larger systems of resource
extraction and consumption, energy production, and waste disposal.

Light and sound

Light pollution has become a problem in urban residential areas, not only as it
relates to its effects on the night sky, but as some lighting is so intrusive as to
cause conflict in the residential areas and paradoxically intense improperly
installed security lighting may pose a danger to the public, producing excessive
glare. The urban canyon effect is a colloquial, non-scientific term referring to
street space bordered by very high buildings. This type of environment may shade
the sidewalk level from direct sunlight during most daylight hours.

In urban planning, sound is also measured as a source of pollution.

Regional Growth Theories

Growth of a region
Increase of Income

Better use of factors of production land, labour, raw materials,

capital

Increase in demand for its commodities

Theories of regional growth explain the growth of a region
in terms of:
1.
Endogenously induced process Sector theory
2.
Exogenously induced process Export base model
3.
Spatially induced process Growth pole, Centre
periphery dominance, Polarisation & trickling down
effect, Spread & backwash effect etc.

Sector Theory
According to sector theory, the process of economic development is
accompanied by a shift in the employment pattern first from primary
to secondary sector and later on to the tertiary sector.
The explanation is based upon the different income elasticity for the
products of these sectors and the relative differences in the average
earnings per worker in different sectors.
Demand for a product is proportionate to its price. A small change in
the price may lead to a greater change in demand. In such cases the
demand is called elastic. On the other hand, even a big change in
price may not cause any change in demand. Such demand is called
inelastic e.g. salt.
When income increases, demand for secondary & tertiary products
and services increase.

Phases in Sector Theory

First phase: Traditional civilizations
Workforce quotas:
* Primary sector: 70% * Secondary sector: 20% * Tertiary sector: 10%
Second phase: Transitional period
Workforce quotas:
* Primary sector: 20% * Secondary sector: 50% * Tertiary sector: 30%
Third phase: Tertiary civilization
Workforce quotas:
* Primary sector: 10% * Secondary sector: 20% * Tertiary sector: 70%
The primary and secondary sectors are increasingly dominated by
automation, and the demand for workforce numbers falls in these
sectors

Exogenously Induced Process

Export Base Model
Export Base Model (EBM) emphasis the exogenous factors in regional
growth. It points out that regions are not closed areas but are open to the
flows of trade.
Export Base Model (EBM) indicates that growth of a region depends upon
the growth of the regional export base; Regional export depends on the
expansion in demand external to the region. As a consequence of export
sales, income in the region increases leading to an expansion of residentiary
activities, development of external economics and further regional growth
Process of regional economic development as explained by D.C North -Region is a territory developing around a common export base. Growth of a
region is closely tied to the success of its exports and it may take place
either as result of the improved position of existing exports relative to
competing areas or as a result of the development of new exports.
This involves both basic & non-basic activities.

Spatially induced process

THUMEN
Cultivation would be arranged in a series of concentric circles round
the town, according to the cost of transportation of the commodity and
the ratio in which its value stood to its bulk and weight. A series of
concentric rings would tend to grow up around the city and a specific
pattern of land-use would dominate within each ring.
Town
Dairyfarming
GreenVegetables / Horticulture
Pulses/cereals
Firewood
WEBER
AUGUST LOSCH
Least cost approach
Profit maximization
Ignoring market
Ignoring the raw material

Christallers Central Place Theory

Christaller claims that the theory is organically based on the The
crystallization of mass around a nucleus is, in inorganic as well as organic
nature, an elementary form of the order of things, which belong together
a centralistic order.This order is not only a human mode of thinking, existing
in the human world of imagination and developed because people demand
order; it in fact exists out of the inherent pattern of matter.
He explained central place is the source of goods and services to the
surroundings beyond its own area.
Implicit in the theory is the complementary relation of the two areas
and the conditions governing the spatial distribution of central places
and their hierarchical arrangement.
According to Christaller a central place is defined as a settlement providing
services for the population of its hinter land (known as complementary
region), supplying it with central goods and services (educational, leisure
and cultural facilities) as well as those of retail and wholesale.

In the Central Place Theory (CPT) of Christaller, centrality means

importance. It is manifested by the quantity and quality of different
services and functions provided by the settlement.It is defined as the
functional importance of settlement of the central place. Functions
determine the centrality of the centre and not the location.
One of the most important characteristics of a central function is that
it generates spatial interactions, through the movement of men,
materials and ideas between the center place and the
complimentary region surrounding it. Rarer the function, higher the
range of the interaction.
Each center has its complimentary area and from the center
emanates the centrifugal or distributive functions and from the
complimentary areas to the center gravitate centripetal activities or
activities of collection.

Central place theory is usually explained by using three concepts

associated with it.
1.

Centrality

2.

Threshold

3.

Range of central good

Spatial Theories continued

Gunnar Myrdal Spread and Backwash effect
Perroux Growth Pole Theory
Albeto Hirschman Polarisation and trickling down
effect
John Friedman Centre periphery dominance
effect

Growth Pole Theory

Growth does not appear everywhere and all at once; it appears in
points or development poles with variable intensities; it spread along
diverse channels and with varying terminal effects to the whole of
the economy
The growth pole theory postulates that if we carefully plan the public
investment programs to be concentrated or located in a small
number of favorable locations then it will have maximum spread
effects on a regional growth.
Boudeville gave geographic content to Perrouxs economic space.
He defined a growth pole as a set of expanding industries located in
an urban area and it includes further development of economic
activity throughout its zone of influence. The place where these
expanding or propulsive or dominant industries are located in the
region becomes the poles of the region and agglomeration tendencies
are promoted.
:

Spread and Backwash effect

Gunnar Myrdal believes that international and inter-regional
Economic relations in practice involve unequal exchanges in the
sense that the weak are always exploited by the strong. Belief in the
competitive market benefiting all is misplaced.
Less developed countries face three types of problems
(as analyzed in the backwash effects theory).
First, the developed countries exploit them in international
economic relations.
Second the rich regions are also in the semi- colonial position
with regard to the backward regions.
Third, the rich people milk the poor persons of these countries

Core-Periphery Model
Core-periphery theory is based on the notion that as one region or
state expands in economic prosperity, it must engulf regions nearby
to ensure ongoing economic and political success. The area of high
growth becomes known as the core, and the neighboring area is the
periphery. Cores and peripheries may be towns, cities, states, or
nations.
The Core-Periphery model helps explain why some inner city areas
enjoy considerable prosperity, whilst others display all the signs of
urban deprivation and poverty.
Services, investment and jobs are concentrated in the core Central
Business District (CBD), but accessible inner city areas may benefit
from a trickle down of wealth from the core. For example, in some
areas there may be a through-flow of office workers to the inner city
seeking low-price lunchtime meals. The core also provides work for
inner city residents

END