Regional

Planning and
Development
Principles, Concepts, Policies, Strategies

Evan Anthony Arias, EnP, DM

 • Understand the concepts, nature and
classification of regions
• Explain the rationale, concepts, issues,
Learning policies and principles of regional planning
and development
Objectives • Discuss the regional planning approaches
and strategies
• Describe the factors for delineating regional
subdivisions/centers
Region
• An area composed of a central
place (city) and the outlying
territories that are functionally
integrated with it
• A Region is based on
natural/physical as well as
economic/ political relationships
between urban areas and its
surrounding rural territories
Some Concepts and Terminologies
• Urban Region
• City Region Peri-urban
• Metropolis
• Megalopolis Peri-urban Interface (PUI)
• Metropolitan
Suburban
• Urban Agglomeration
• Conurbation Densification

Amalgamation
Source: https://thecinemaholic.com/game-of-thrones-map/
 • In geography, a region is defined as a large area
with common physical or human impact
characteristics
• Geographers often group places or areas based on
shared or common features. The features that
define a region are physical, cultural, or political.

What is a • Physical features include mainly natural features

such as landforms, ecosystems, and drainage
basins, while cultural features include religion,
Region? language, and local practices
• A region has three components: natural
environment, physical elements, and socio-
cultural contexts.
• However, some regions are mental constructs that
exist more in the mind rather than the physical.
Source: World Atlas
Photo credit: Aakash B. and Bogdan M. - Stibitz B4

Photo credit: ALAMU, The Telegraph

 Functional Region
-geographical area which displays a certain functional
coherence, an interdependence of parts, defined on the
basis of certain criteria;
• Economic Region
• Bound by economic linkages, interflows of factors
Regions in Real and materials, inputs-and outputs
• Often carved out by Trans-National Corporations
Space and other agents of Globalization by their
interlinking of industrial clusters, districts, zones
and ports.
• Region as space economy: trade routes, industrial
districts, clusters of industries, ecozones
• Natural Region – a geographic area of interdependent
ecosystems and natural communities and habitats
 Formal Region
-geographical area which is uniform and homogeneous in
terms of related criteria; variability is absent; used
generally for analytic purposes

• Political-Administrative Regions--defined by common

Regions in Real political authority, administrative boundaries (national,
Space state, local) or electoral constituency.
• Urban Region--region encompassing large cities/towns
as well as commuter villages/communities
economically and socially linked to them or dependent
upon them. Urban regions are erroneously treated as
homogeneous rather than as physical and socio-
cultural mosaic/collage/palimpsest or as a
heterogenous “ecosystem”
Philippine Regions

Source: https://www.philatlas.com/regions.html
 Other types of regions:
• Historic Region – area bound together by a common
historical past
• Two types of natural regions:
• Bio-Region –a land and water territory whose limits
Regions in Real are defined not by political boundaries, but by the
geographical limits of human communities and
Space ecological systems
• Eco-Region – large unit of land or water containing a
geographically distinct assemblage of species, natural
communities, and environmental conditions (WWF)
• Interdependence and natural connectedness of
ecosystems and their communities (river basins,
watersheds).
Source: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/ecological-regions-of-the-philippines.html
Bioregions of Northern America

Northern America contains the majority of

the Nearctic realm, spanning from southern
Canada to northern Mexico and containing
6 subrealms
Source:

Source: https://www.oneearth.org/realms/northern-america/
Region in Virtual
Space
• Virtual Region – a network of
functionally-related areas with high
level of connectivity (ICT) and
economic inter-flows even though
these areas are not spatially
proximate or contiguous
• Region as Network Economy. The
ascendancy of ICT has enabled
small firms and even MNCs to
create their own dispersed
economic networks.
Regional Planning
• Primarily deals with planning for a sub-national territory with known scale (size)
and extent (scope), normally a contiguous area whose parts have common or
complementary characteristics and are linked by intensive interaction or flows.
• The whole region is set apart from neighboring territories by its distinctive
economic and social characteristics, continuities and discontinuities,
opportunities and problems, even though it may not have defined local authority
structures and clear administrative boundaries.
• It is intermediate between national and urban levels and straddles the gap
between national and grassroot levels.
• A region is an extended urban space – it has urban as well as rural components
• Urban-Rural linkages are key functions in a region
 History of Regional Planning
1. Early influences from the Garden City Movement (UK) and New Towns Movement (US)
2. The number of US cities with ‘municipal planning commissions’ grew from 100 to 500 between 1920 1930.
3. Regional Planning Association of America was founded in 1923-25
published “Survey” – a manifesto containing the concept of a region
members - architects, engineers, surveyors, sculptors, artists, sociologists (lawyers, associate members only)
result - interdisciplinary approach to planning
4. Town and Country Planning Act of 1947 (UK)
Concerned with the spatial impact of problems and the spatial coordination of many
different policies
Method of Planning – man assumes control over physical and human matter and
processes it to serve his defined needs
5. Benton MacKaye published The New Exploration: A Philosophy of Regional Planning, 1928
6. Thomas Adams and Lewis Mumford debated the multi-volume Regional Plan of New York, 1928-1932
7. Regional Planning on counties, river basins, valleys, dams, rangeland, ancestral land -- Los Angeles County, 1922;
Appalachian Trail, 1928; Tennessee Valley Authority 1933; Grand Coulee Dam 1935; Colorado River- Hoover
Dam 1936; St Lawrence Seaway, 1959; Delaware River 1961; Miami (Ohio) Valley 1970.
8. Regional Planning easily dovetailed with Transportation Planning (Penn- Jersey, 1954; Chicago-Detroit, 1954)
Aspects of Regional Planning
• Physical – planning an area’s physical structures: land use,
communications, utilities, etc. and has its origin in the regulation and
control of town development (direct control), decentralization policies
• Economic – concerned with the economic structure of an area and its
overall level of prosperity (works more through the market mechanism),
growth poles, efficiency, how to attract investments, reduction of regional
disparities (regional convergence)
• Social – migration of people, issues of equity, allocation, redistribution
• Cultural – ethnic identity, common history, homogeneity versus
heterogeneity
• Environmental – connectedness of ecosystems, sustainability
Linkages in a Region
Economic Infrastructure
• Extent of urban influence on • Major Transport nodes
nonurban areas. e.g. • Utility trunks – water
journeys to work purification plants, power
• Extent of urban dependence supply
on non-urban territories for • Areas performing sink-
food, water and labor functions of city, e.g.
supplies, etc. landfill, MRF, STP
• Production and consumption
functions: Industries,
commerce, trade
Pioneers of Regional Planning

Their concepts, ideas and approaches

Patrick Geddes
Considered the father of Regional Planning
Scottish biologist, sociologist, geographer,
philanthropist and pioneering town planner

• Responsible for introducing the concept of

Region to architecture and planning
• Coined the term conurbation
Walter Isard
an economist who founded the field of
Regional Science

Deeply influenced by the German economists who developed

location theory — the study of geographic location as a prime
factor in economic development — he began lobbying for an
interdisciplinary approach to analyzing local and regional
economies.
Sir Leslie Patrick Abercrombie
Pioneer of regional
planning in UK

Was an expert in town

planning
Apart from London, he was
involved in the re-planning of
Plymouth, Hull, Bath,
Edinburgh and Bournemouth.

He was given the job by the

British government of
redesigning Hong Kong
Source: https://www.barbicanliving.co.uk/the-
abercrombie-plan/
Clarence S. Stein
• Was an American urban planner, architect, and
writer, a major proponent of the garden city
movement in the United States
• Cofounded the Regional Planning Association of
America (RPAA) in 1923
• Most renowned works include his plans for
Radburn, New Jersey; Sunnyside Gardens, New
York; Greenbelt, Maryland; and Village Green, Los
Angeles
Clarence Stein’s Six Principles of New Towns
(1920s, USA)
Earliest Regional Planning Efforts

• Plan simply, but comprehensively

• Provide ample sites in the right places for community use
• Put factories and other industrial buildings where they can
be used without wasteful transportation of people and goods
• Cars must be parked and stored (not on the streets!)
• Bring private and public land into relationship
• Arrange for the occupancy of houses
Lewis Mumford
• American architectural critic, urban planner, and
historian who analyzed the effects of technology
and urbanization on human societies throughout
history
• Father of historico-sociological approach in land use
planning
• A lifelong opponent of large-scale public works,
much of his writings concern the effect of buildings
on the human condition and the environment.
Benton MacKaye
• Father of the Appalachian Trail, USA
• Was an American forester, planner and conservationist
• Wrote the "An Appalachian Trail, A Project in Regional
Planning“

This “project in regional planning,” as MacKaye called it,

was meant to be a thoroughgoing cultural critique of
industrial modernity — a template for comprehensive
economic redevelopment at a scale never before
attempted in the United States.
It would rebalance the vampiric relationship between city
and hinterland and align the dimensions of regional
planning with the geography of ecological zones rather
than political jurisdictions.

Source: https://placesjournal.org/article/an-appalachian-trail-a-project-in-regional-planning/?cn-reloaded=1
Focus of Regional Planning
• Decentralization policies
• Distribution of population
• Reduction of economic disparities among regions – versus economic polarization
• Inter-regional allocation or redistribution of resources (regional convergence)
• Institutional capacitation (e.g. reorganization of local governments)
• Urban congestion : “urban, suburban and rural” no longer suffice.
• “region” cross-cutting,
• more encompassing concept that treats cities in relation to its environs;
• considers principles of ecological balance and resource renewal.
• Subordinates Cities to region; old cities and new towns alike grow as
necessary parts of a region
Regional Divergence
Regions are inherently unequal

• Causes of Regional Imbalance

• Geography & natural endowments: harbors, minerals, raw materials
• Historical factors: invasion, colonization, etc.
• Specific economical, political, technological, social, demographic conditions
• Combination: in the beginning, external factors, later internal factors
• State policies and interventions have to temper if not rectify Regional
Divergence rather than intensify it.
Principles of Regional Planning
• Designate transportation corridors using hubs and spokes and consider major new
infrastructure
• Some settlements in the region may be administrative in nature while others are based
upon manufacturing or transport.
• Set regional level policy which encourages a mix of housing values and communities.
• Resist development in flood plains or along earthquake faults. These areas may be
utilized as parks, or farmland.
• Designate greenbelt land or similar land uses to resist settlement amalgamation and
protect the environment.
• Consider designating essential nuisance land uses locations, including waste disposal.
• Consider building codes, zoning laws and policies that encourage the best use of the
land.
 Growth Pole’ Theory
by Francois Perroux
• “Growth does not appear everywhere and all
at once;
• It manifests itself in points or ‘poles’ of
growth, with variable intensities;
• It spreads by different channels with variable
terminal effects for the economy as a whole.”
• Growth Pole –A spatial agglomeration of
related industries which contains a growing
number of propulsive firms, which, through
their expansion, induce growth in the
surrounding hinterland
Growth Pole’ Theory
by Francois Perroux
Propulsive firm/ industry
• Dominant economic unit which when it grows or innovates, induces growth in the other
economic units.
• It may be a firm, a cluster of firms within the same sector (i.e., an industry), or a collection of
firms which have shared agreement (industrial estate).
Characteristics of propulsive firms:
• Large size;
• Fast growth;
• Strong linkages;
• Innovative
• Direct and indirect dominating influence over all other activities
• Oligopolistic concentration of industry with price leadership and keen sense of anticipation
in the moves of its own sector as well as related branches
Growth Center
• Growth Center (geographic space) -
by Jacques R. Boudeville is a propulsive urban
• center of a region possessing a
• Transformed “Growth Pole‟ into complex of expanding industries
where the agglomeration of
a specific place within a region activities induces growth in its
that is heterogenous, surrounding hinterland. The growth
continuous, and not specialized. center has growth rate of
population or employment that is
greater than that of total region.

• “Regional growth center” refers to

“a set of expanding industries
located in an urban area and
inducing further development of
economic activity throughout its
zone of influence” with complex
activities around a propulsive center
Usefulness of Growth Pole/Growth Center

• Efficient way of generating development – owing to agglomeration Economies

• Less public expenditures if investment areas are concentrated in specific growth points
• Spread effects out of the growth point will help solve the problems of depressed regions
• Transportation routes as channels of growth
• Useful to understand regional structures and designate regional centers, predict changes or
prescribe solutions to certain regional problems
• Inspired the Philippine strategy of “concentrated decentralization” where alternative urban
centers serve as counter magnets to the Primate City (NCR) which has caused “economic
polarization”
Agglomeration
• Agglomeration – territorial or economic units Most Famous Industrial Clustering
cluster for mutual advantages such as • Baden Wurttemberg (Germany),
proximity to raw materials, source of
electricity, utilization of man-made • Silicon Valley, California
facilities/utilities etc. • Detroit, Michigan
• Agglomeration Economies – advantages or • London and Cambridgeshire, England
benefits of growth arising from scale, • Sassuolo, Castellarano, Emilia Romagna,
concentration, and density, such that per unit Sesto San Giovanni, Veneto (Italy)
cost of product or operation is reduced. It has • Juten (Denmark)
two sub-categories
• Boston, Massachusetts
• When one is successful, others follow.
• Valencia and Vitoria Gasteiz (Spain).
• Urbanization Economies (external to the
firm but internal to the industry) • Esbo, Uleåborg och Salo in Finland
• Economies of Scale (internal to the firm)
Urban Agglomeration
Contiguously built-up area
Shaped by one core city or by several
adjacent cities
Sharing industry- infrastructure- and housing-
land use
With high-density levels as well as embedded
open spaces.
(Loibl, et al, 2018)
Stages of Urban Agglomeration

Source: Chuanglin Fang, Danlin Yu, https://reader.elsevier.com/

 Some Agglomerations
are not limited by
territorial jurisdiction

San Diego–Tijuana is an
international transborder agglomeration,
straddling the border of the adjacent North
American coastal cities of San
Diego, California, United
States and Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico.
The 2012 population of the region was
4,922,723, making it the largest bi-national
conurbation shared between the United States
and Mexico, the second-largest shared
between the US and another country.
Source: istock by getty https://www.wikiwand.com/en/San_Diego%E2%80%93Tijuana
images
 Theory of Cumulative Causation
by Gunnar Myrdal, Nobel Laureate (1957)

• Capitalism is characterized by income and welfare inequalities based on history

• In countries divided into regions, growth will not be the same. Disequilibrium in
economy is due to market forces; Market forces create regional inequalities and
widen those which already exist. Market forces, if left alone, tend to increase
rather than decrease inequalities between regions
• Regions with expanding economic activity will attract net migration from other
parts of the country, thus favoring the growth regions. Capital investments tend
to have a similar effect: increased demand in centers of expansion spur
investment, which in turn will increase incomes and demand and cause a
second round of investments, etc.
 Theory of Cumulative Causation
by Gunnar Myrdal, Nobel Laureate (1957)

Circular and cumulative causation

• Change in some variables does not bring the system back to equilibrium = induces supporting changes
farther from the initial state
• A region or country becomes richer, the poor becomes poorer because of cumulative process where
forces work in circular causation to reinforce development or underdevelopment.
• “The poor becomes poorer and the rich becomes richer.”
Social systems are not self-equilibrating (Circular and cumulative causation)
• Backwash effect – attention going back to core region; retards growth and widens economic gap
between regions
• Spread effects – positive effects initially felt e.g. raw materials but backwash is stronger
Trade operates with the same fundamental bias in favor of more progressive regions
Government policy should be to counteract tendency of capitalist system to foster regional inequalities.
Government needs to intervene to decrease imbalances wherever the normal market mechanisms proves
inadequate.
 Theory of Cumulative Causation
by Gunnar Myrdal, Nobel Laureate (1957)

• The combination of forward and backward linkages creates a potential

process of cumulative causation: expansion of downstream activity increases
demand for upstream output which attracts entry, improving the supply
(price or varieties) of intermediates, attracting further downstream entry,
and so on.
• Linkage – input-output relationships among firms or among industries
• Forward linkage – outputs or sales from one intermediate firm/industry is
maximally utilize by another firm/industry
• Backward linkage – factors of production or intermediary inputs from one
firm/industry is maximally utilized by another firm/industry
 • “Development can start only in a relatively few
Theory of dynamic sectors and geographic locations from
where it is expected to spread to the remaining
Uneven sectors and geographical areas of a country”
Development • Growth is necessarily an unbalanced process, and
(Center-Down takes place through a “chain of disequilibrium,”
the expansion of one industry creates
Paradigm) by disequilibrium for the other. Uneven
Albert Hirschman development is natural.
• Development strategies could concentrate on a
relatively few sectors, determined by their ability
to induce forward and backward linkage effects.
Scarce resources can’t be invested everywhere at
once, and certain sectors must obviously be
selected for their growth potential.
 Theory of
Uneven • ‘Polarization’ happens in the early stages
Development of economic growth. As polarization
(Center-Down becomes unfavorable, “trickle down”
Paradigm) by effect will start.
Albert Hirschman • “Trickle down effect” – spontaneous and
inevitable process of development of
backward areas because of pulls in input
demand from developed regions.
Center-Periphery Model
by John Friedmann
• Friedmann went beyond notions of growth pole
and growth center using center-periphery
concept that goes beyond intersectoral
distribution of resources.
• Economic growth would occur through a highly
developed and interconnected functional
hierarchy of cities and towns and such growth is
proportional to the size of agglomeration. This
hierarchy of cities is a means of integrating the
periphery with the center.
• Regions are either “homogeneous” or
“interdependent”. The latter are polarized
regions.
Center-Periphery Model
by John Friedmann
• The periphery of a polarized region can be divided into
four parts:
• Upward transitional regions are areas which are growing with high
growth potential but are capital constrained.
• Downward transitional regions are old rural (or industrial)
economies in decline and where emigration is most evident.
• Resource frontiers are new settlement zones in which potentials
for growth is large.
• Special problem regions are those needing policy interventions
more than the other cited regions.
• This classification allows distinction of regions according
to needed policy actions and that the treatment of
regional problems are not taken in isolation but in
consideration of the whole regional system.
AGROPOLIS
by John Friedmann

Connect urban area with its surrounding rural areas

Selective Territorial Closure – trade among

yourselves, basically self-reliance, focus on domestic
demand, not exports

Basic Needs Approach

“Agropolis” became a model for “Integrated

Source: https://www.kunsthall.no/en/events/1667-2016-02-24/
Area Development” in regional planning.
Theory of Human Capital
• Human capital is collective term for “embodied assets” such as education,
good health, knowledge, skills, values, character” as against ‘dis-embodied
assets’ (invention, innovation, technologies)
• Human Capital is important for two reasons:
• First, a region’s stock of human capital determines its ability to absorb and use new
technology. As the stock of human capital increases, the economy will be more able
to benefit from technological developments, thereby expanding the economy’s
productive capacity. Hence, although technology may be available everywhere, its
efficient use requires an appropriately skilled workforce.
• Second, human capital is an important ingredient in determining the ability of a
region to generate its own technical progress. The capacity of a region to absorb or
create technical progress is not simply a matter of investing in physical or human
capital. A region’s capacity to absorb or create technical progress is determined by its
institutional environment.
Theory of Human Capital
• The creation of technical progress is determined by a collective learning
process within which many individuals interact and exchange ideas and
information, thereby providing a knowledge-rich environment.
• If such an environment exist, knowledge pases quickly from one economic
agent to another, giving rise to the rapid creation of a wide variety of new
ideas.
• There are therefore economies of scale to be gained from the geographical
concentration of large numbers of highly educated people since their
proximity to each other results in a more rapid transfer of knowledge and
ideas.
• These ideas are then transformed into new products and new processes,
thereby raising labor productivity.
Regional Planning in the Philippines
• Presidential Decree No. 01 entitled the Integrated Reorganization Plan (IRP)
of 1972 defined „regions‟ in the Philippines.
• Industrial Dispersal‟ -- a Presidential decree with the objective of
decongesting Metro Manila banned the location of new factories and
plants within a 50-kilometer radius of Manila (Luneta), December 1973.
• North Luzon Expressway and South Luzon Expressway demarcated the
distance – thus Calamba City became the de facto new „regional industrial
hub‟.
• National Industrial Policy
• means the promotion of new industries or the expansion of existing industries in
areas outside of Metro Manila
• these are selected urban centers having superior industrial potential and / or better
infrastructure for accelerate industrial development
• the national development strategy of government since late seventies
Philippine Strategy of “concentrated
decentralization”
Spatial Strategies
• Regional Agro-Industrial Centers (Cory Aquino) and
Regional Industrial Centers (FVR)
• Growth Corridor
• Industrial Estate
• Special Economic Zone
• Export Processing Zone
• Balanced Countryside Agro-industrial
Development (FVR
Special
Economic Zone
(Ecozone)
Laws Creating ECOZONEs
• R.A. 7227 – Bases Conversion Dev’t.
Act
• R.A. 7903 - Zamboanga City Special
Economic Zone Act of 1995
• R.A. 7916 - PEZA Law
• R.A. 7922 - Cagayan Special
Economic Zone Act of 1995
• Republic Act No. 7916 (amended by
Republic Act No. 8748) otherwise
known as “The Special Economic
Zone Act of 1995”
Growth Corridor
• Semi urbanized areas along major
transportation axis
• Aims to expand the development
impact radiated by the RAICs
• Consistent with the “growth center
concept”

Characteristics:
• Belt form of continuously developed urban areas
• Requires strong transportation axes composed
of several major roads and other transportation
modes in one direction
• Based on a single strong road or on a
combination of a major road and an expressway
Growth Corridors
in the Philippines
• CALABARZON
• Cagayan - Iligan Growth Corridor
• Northwestern Luzon Growth Quadrangle
(Laoag - San Fernando - Dagupan - Baguio)
• South Cotabato-Davao-Zamboanga
• West Central Luzon (Bulacan - Pampanga -
Bataan - Zambales)
• Naga-Iriga-Legazpi
• Tuguegarao-Ilagan-Cauayan
National Spatial Overlay of Economic
Growth, Demographic

Strategy Trends, and Physical

Characteristics
Philippine Development Plan
 Key principles of spatial
development:
National • Integration of leading and lagging
areas and urban-rural linkages through
Spatial transportation networks
• Improvement of access to social
Strategy services
• Identification of locations of major
infrastructure to maximize their benefits
• Improvement of local, national, and
international connectivity
• Promotion of sustainable development
and resiliency
Average Regional
Share in GDP,
2010-2015
The Overall Spatial Strategy

Regional Connectivity Reduction of

Agglomeration The strategy of Vulnerability
The NSS seeks to connectivity aims to The NSS seeks to
build on the connect the make vulnerability
efficiencies and settlements to form reduction an
maximize the an efficient network integral part of
benefits of scale development
and agglomeration
economies
Regional Spatial Strategies
• Luzon Spatial Development Framework (LSDF) 2015– 2045
• Visayas Spatial Development Framework (VSDF) 2015-2045
• Mindanao Spatial Strategy / Development Framework 2015-2045
• Bangsamoro Regional Spatial Strategy (BRSS) under the Philippine Development
Plan (PDP) 2017-2022 and MSS/DF
• The BDP and BRSS are being currently being updated
"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir
men's blood and probably themselves will not be
realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and
work.“
— Daniel Hudson Burnham (1846-1912)