Regional Development in Location Based Approaches to Local Economic Development
Sometimes it is helpful to look at a whole natual "region" when attempting to boost a local economy, because regions can be seen as working as a unified system. Sometimes when the region is dealt with as a whole, there is a synergy that develops which enables the overall economy in the area to flourish. Enterprises left in isolation in a region many times fail, just as a lone tree left without the unified support of other trees topples in a strong wind.A region of any size can be brought under consideration. A region can be continental in scale like the ECU and North American trading block. A region can also be sub-National, like the "prairie region or "marrratimes region" of Canada; or they can be sections of a Province, like the "Westman" region.
Approaches to regional development can be taken from "above" or from "below". That is, a regional economy can be stimulated by Governmental Policy changes and initiatives originating outside the region, or they can be stimulated by garass-roots initiatives and policies arising from within the region.
There are, of course, areas that are more "developed" (regardless of how the term is defined) than others at any given time. This relative state of development or underdevelopment varies over time, though not that quickly for the most part. The terms used in he literature for these relative positions are "leading" and "lagging", and may shift depending which characteristic is under consideration. A country may well lag in one characteristic, and lead in another.
Generally the first world prefers to think that the only consideration that really matters in this regard is to lead in the "economic" aspect of life (narrowly defined), but that view is by no means universally held. This narrow attitude has already brought the world to the edge of ecological disaster. A huge debate is underway on a global scale as to how the "third world" can "catch up" with the first, without tipping the ecological ballance by using up the precious little margin of operation left after the first world's reckless behavior.
When two or more regions under discussion are global in scale, the terms that refer to the active "hot spots" of development activity or of higher achieved level of development, relative to another region are "core" nd "perifery". Within any region itself such distinctions are referred to by the terms "pole" (growth center) and hinterland. This allows for consideration of both aspects in the same discussion with less confusion.
All of these Regional development approaches have two assumptions in common:
- They are space or geographic locused and within that space they try to increase the amount of goods and services produced for export within that region relative to the amount produced for local consumption. Some of this relative shift in production is accomplished through "import substitution" initiatives, some of it is accomplished through increases in volume of exports.
- The are very aware of a region's "stage" in life cycle.These stages are defined differently, the most common being Rostow's five stages. Regions, which are trying to improve their economic activity level, will be doing so within the framework of one of these stages. The assumption by many people is that everyone wants to be at stage five, but this is not universally held. Rostow's five stages are really "ranges" of activity and are called:
- Traditional
- Take-off Preconditions
- Takeof
- Maturity
- Mass Consumption
Space Based Stratagies -Development from Above
Space Based Strategies- Development from Below