The evolution of regional development concepts: some new trends

0016-7185184 $3 ~n)+~.~ Pergamon Press Ltd.

Geoforum, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 11.-17, 1984. Printed in Great Britain.

The Evolution of Regional Development Concepts: some New Trends

S. B. L,AVROV,” Leningrad, U.S.S.R. and G. V. SDASYUK,t

Moscow, U.S.S.R.

This paper traces the theoretical development of the regional concept and the use of regionalization techniques in Soviet geography and seeks to compare this history with comparable trends in Western geography. It is severely critical of the major and rapid paradigm shifts noticed in post-war Western geographical science and relates these to shifts in the approach to global development issues.

Abstract:

in the post-war period extremely widespread development of the ~egi~~~l merhod of sfudy. However (unlike, for instance, mathematics), such a development of a geographical method of study far from always strengthens the positions of geographical science proper. Studies in regional development, which are new for economists, are often procIaimed as ‘discoveries’ on the problems of regionalization . . . ignoring the vast special literature produced by geographers. This delays the progress of both theoretical and applied investigations.

Regional research and regionalizatioI1 are classic themes of geography. Ideas of spatial development compose the core of the theoretical basis of geography. However, in the epoch of scientific and technological revolution, the very notions ‘development’ and ‘space’ undergo transformation. this being reflected in changes of concepts in the sciences investigating these phenomena and processes. At such turning points also, the search increases for ‘self-knowledge’ of science - its subject, methods and aims of investigation. We are seeking to characterize (although inevitably schematically) the changing attitude to ‘regional geography’ and the main ‘turning points’ in the evolution of the concept of regional development in recent years. Soviet experience in this field is illuminated in several papers presented at the British-Soviet seminar (Aganbegyan and Bandman, Alayev, Vladimirov, etc.), and therefore we will focus on analysing trends in Western geography compared to those in Soviet geography.

The paradox of the situation is that while regional methods of studies spread into other sciences, and first of all into economics (the regional science of W. Isard, regional economics, etc.), regional geography and regional studies are often treated even by geographers themselves as a descriptive approach, or only as a system of information. The prestige of regional geography in the West has suffered greatly, especially in the period of the ‘quantitative revolution’. E. Brown writes, “in the last 15-20 years regional geography not only suffered from neglect, but underwent a true beating by professional geographers, who with all the enthusiasm of converts turned away from studying regional variety, to what they considered to be a deeper analysis of the processes, both natural and social, which determine the face of the Earth. . .” Neglected, beaten, dead or dying regional geography might be, but it refuses to lie still.

Social demands, the world-wide spread of the practice of regional planning under essentially different socio-political systems, principles, targets and possibilities of planning - have brought to life

*Professor, Department of Economic Geography, Leningrad State University, Leningrad, U.S.S.R. Y-Institute of Geography, U.S.S.R.

Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 11

The enthusiasm which accom~a~icd the mastering of mathematjcs, first of all by British geogra~hcrs~ is quite understa~dable~ this was a way uut of a dead end to which geography was brought by the long dominance of the concept of the “uniqueness of geographical phenomenal. Mowever, enthusiasm born of the first successes of the mathemati2ation of geography went over to euphoria; methodology was proclaimed and accepted as the target, content and prestige appraisal of scientific level. The regular, progressive process of the introduction of the scientific and technological revolution into geographical science resulted in definite negative after effects. We remember that at the first British-Soviet seminar, E. Jones noted that “techniques often outstripped conceptual thinking and even threatened to be a weakness as method sometimes became an end in itself” (JONES, 1979, p. 215). He was right to stress the yawning gap between some complicated, costly g~o~~phical-mathematical investigations and the urgent problems of development, especially in newIy liberated countries; “extensive computerized study of social aspects of life in Calcutta mean little for those studying ~irba~i2ation and still less for the ~~~~~ homeless, who sleep on the streets of Calcutta” (JONES, 1979). The urge to study real and vitally im~rta~t problems and hence the development of ‘relevant’ geography became the sign of the times for many Western geographers in the 3970s, as was evident during the first British-Soviet seminar. In its most acute form this search for investigation of essential problems was probably expressed in the radicahzation of Western geography. We tried to give our appraisal of this complicated, congiamerate trend, which was then in the making (LAVROV et al., 1979). Representatives of this trend, as it seems to us, sincerely seek to study the most important and radical problems of today. They sharply criticize the weak points of both traditional and mathematical geography, which lead to the ‘desert of detailization’. True, the critical aspect is manifest much more clearly in their work than the positive one; often they run to extremes in refusing, for instance, methods of investigations. the quantitative Extremes of i~ter~re~tion of many essential, including regional, problems by the representatives of ‘radical ~~ogra~hy7 are explained, as it seems to us, by their vague and m~iti-component theoretical conceptions, which combine on the one hand Marxist, and on the other hand anarchic and other ultraleft ideas.

In 1980, Soti& ~e~gr~~~~ published a reply to our paper by Peet and Slater. ~nfort~nately, this reply confirmed onr opinion that Soviet geography is often little known to Western geogra~hers~ and ‘radical’ g~ogra~hers, who seek to find explanations for complicated modern situations in &IarxistLeninist teaching, often misinterpret it. Thus they consider that “acceptance of the general validity of historical materialism nullifies geography’s so-called scientific existence, and leads us into the reconstructing of all the questions asked within the ideological discourse that is called geography, and their reincorporation into the determining problematic of historical materialism” (PEET and SLATER, 1980, p. 544). Actually, in the development of Soviet economic geography, and above all of regionalization theory, a great impetus was given by such works of Lenin as Developmetrt of C~~it~l~~~~irz Russia (1899), NeM; Darn OPlLaws of C~~~t~I~‘~t ~ev~lo~~e~t k Ag~~~~~me (1916) and ~r~~~ PElz~zof Scient~~~c-ertgie~~~~~ Activities (1918); these are studies of permanent value for Soviet geography. The first two presented a m~tbodology of economic regionalizati~)n of a country; they showed that it is a most com~licatcd phenomenons in which all social processes are concentrated. The last work outlined the main lines of reconstruction of &_X3Sia’S territorial strucFure after the Revolution. Lenin revealed the role of economic re~io~ali~atio~ in disclosing objective processes of national economic developments he demonstrated the unity of sectoral and spatial divisions of labour and the social meaning of these processes, and showed the importance of the regional method of study. According to Lenin’s methodology ‘~regio~~ali~ation involves . . . not only enterprises and their groups as such, and not even production industries and their combinations, but also those social conditions, that formed the basis for their development” (CHETYRKIN, 1967). The logical step from theory to practice was the acceptance in 1920-1921 of the Plan for the State Electrification of Russia (GOELRQ) - fhe world’s first scientific, macro”r~gionaI, long-term plan of national development based on the power industry, At the same time, it was stressed that “‘the economic principite of reg~onali~atio~ should be realized in such a form as to promote the material and spiritual deveIopm~nt of all the nationalities and nations of the Russian Federation, with account Of the peculiarities of their customs, cuhure and economic state” (Tezisy, ~yr~b~tu~~~ie . . ., 1922,

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1957). Since 1922 the history of geography’s development in the USSR. has been organically linked with the history of building socialism, the development of the formerly backward national borderiands, the integration of the country, the gradual development of the natural resources of the eastern regions, the acceleration of socioeconomic progress on the basis of the territoriaf division of iabour and the specialization of iarge economic regions. For over 60 yr geography in the U.S.S.R. has acted as one of the essential components of scientific regional planning, which is carried out at ail levels, from national and macro-regional to local and intra-urban. This does not mean, however, that we seek to present the development of geography in the U.S.S.R. as a smooth line of ascent. It is not so, This development was going on and is going on in an acute struggle of ideas and opinions, The 1920s and 1930s witnessed a complicated struggle of left *extremists’, who emasculated the essence of geography in the name of its extreme poiitization (these mistakes of the past are often repeated now by some ‘radical’ geographers) with N. N. Baranskiy, founder of the Soviet economic geography, who stood for the regional essence (‘soul’) of geographical science, and who did much for the advancement of regional studies, for strengthening finks between geography and planning, and for scientific popularization, getting geography across ‘to the people’. The 1930s experienced excessive localization ~‘m~niatur~zation”~ as Pokshishevskiy put it - of geographical studies in the IJ,S,S.R. In the post-war period, Soviet geography was enriched by the fruitful concept of energy-production cycles of Kolosovskiy and the concept of territorial production complexes was developed profoundly; it is now included in Government ~r~~r~rnrne Documents and in the Eleventh Five-year Plan of Economic and Social Development of the U.S.S.R. However, objective problems of regianal deveiopment become more and more complicated - new problems and aspects of development need new approaches to their investigation, The 1970s were the years of general realization of global problems - problems of energy, ecology, natural resources, demography and others which seriously jeopardize human civilization. In 1973 Forrester published his WYLIE ~~n~rn~~~ and by now over a dozen large projects of the same type are already availabie. The best-known among them is the model by Meadows

13 and his co-authors, Limits of Growth, which in i.972 put forward the idea of ‘zero growth’. The unacceptability of this idea and its detailed criticism have been discussed many times, For our purposes, it is especially important to note that this model (as also the first one by Forrester), being giobaily aggregated, did not take into account radicaiiy different trends, resources and prospects of deveiopment in countries of different types and, above ail, in socialist, capitalist and deveioping countries. Schematization of ‘the world as a whole’, without subdivision into countries and large regions, is one of the main weak points of the first global models of development. But this weak point was rapidly realized. The global model by Mesarovic and Pestel (1974) considered the world, subdivided into ten regions. The subsequent global models of development also have a regional character. Especially interesting in many aspects is the mode1 The Furwe of World Economics, developed by a group of UN experts headed by Leont’yev in 1977 (issued in Russian in 1979). This report, which aims at “investigation of ecological aspects of future world economies”, includes a series of alternative forecasts of demographic, economic and ecological states of the world in 1980, 1990, and 2000. One of the main aims of the model by Leont’yev is to try to solve the problems, posed by the UN Generai Assembly, of lessening the increasing gaps in the ieveis of socio-economic development of the former dependent countries and the developed ones. Estimates (by 45 industries, 5 pollutants and 5 kinds of p~fi~ation faciiities) were performed for IS regions of the world. This regianal grouping (corrected as compared to the previous ones) was called the scheme of geographical classification. The importance of the regional approach, the need to have a geographical component in programmes of giobai development, is clearly seen in the formulations of Soviet scientists, who work on methodological problems in the investigation of giobal processes. Thus, GVISHIANI stresses: “The present process of formation of a single human society on Earth does not at all abolish or lessen regional problems. Only comprehensive development of each region can provide realistic conditions for overcoming backwardness. , .” (1979, p. 240). Geographers can state with satisfaction that models of giobal deveiopment acquire an ever greater geograph~~ai character. The origin of global probiems takes place in separate countries and regions.

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received sufficient attention and the n~~i~~ of ~r~dncing dynamic models in which space and time are both central and int~rlinked is in its i~fancy’~ (PIP FORER, 1978, p. 2329,

Global processes and ~~~i~~al ~r~biems are ~~g~~~~ tally interrelated, as are the c~~~es~~~di~g disciplines that study them. Under the impact of global ~r~bl~rns the rn~th~d~l~g~c~I ~~~~~d~ of modern regional research cannot but move ox?from regkmaf studies (the descriptive period, which is clearly over> to problem-c~~str~ctiv~ ones. ~~~~v~r~ this tra~sit~~~ is, regrettably, detayed, New processes, brought to life by the scientific and ~~ch~~~l~gical change the conceptual basis of revolution, geography, and these changes are ~~~~~~1~ related to the theory and practice of dist~ib~ti~n~ ~egi~naI de~el~~rn~~t and c~rn~l~x i~v~s~i~ati~~~ of countries” Thus tremendous progress in the fieId of ~r~~~~~r~ ~dicalIy charges basic geographical ~~dersta~di~g of the notion ‘space-time’, af the acc~ibiIity and importance of ‘reafities beyond’ [the theme of changing understanding of ‘piace’ and ‘space‘ received an interesting i~~t~r~r~tati~~ in the paper by JQNES (1979) at our seminar]. If geography was ~ad~t~~~ally ~~d~rst~~d as the %cience af dis~nc~~ or ‘spatial i~teracti~n9~ now an ev~r~greater interest is attracted by time g~~gr~~hy. Since the ~~ti~~ of %pace’ is ~ss~ntiaIIy defiled by tirn~~~~c~ (and c~st-s~aee~ c#rr~lati~n, with the ~r~g~~ss d tramport it ~~~~rn~~ stilI more dpwmic and retatiue. The Xatter becomes more and more irn~~rta~t when de~~l~~rn~~t processes are a~al~~sed in c~rn~ar~~~~ with absolute ~~hysical~ space. T~~~ing to Einstein’s theories of reIativity, g~~g~a~I~~.rs~by ana’tagy with physics, realize that an ex~i~siv~ intimacy exists between what is located in spwe and the characteristics of space ilself. Space b~c~~~~s plur‘“the notian that space itseff alistic, However, changes d~maticaIly t~r~~~b time has unty recently

A ~~lf~~~d~~~ star~i~g point is the ~r~~s~~i~~ that the specific character of “regictnaf aspects’ of de~el~~rne~t is primarily linked with the essence of thr, very process af d~~~I~~rn~ut. Recent years have witnessed a change in understanding of the no&b&ties, aims, rn~th~ds and value of social development as such. Despite the targets of decreasing disparities in the Ievels of soci~-ec~~~~mic development of the former c~l~niaI and dependent countries and the developed ones, which have been officially pr~ciaimed by the UN for already three decades, these disparities in fact increase. In the foreseeable future most d~vel~~i~~ countries will not be able to reach the standards ~~bicb tbe ‘consumer society’ has left behind a quarter of a century ago. In this society an indiv~d~aI ~~~s~rn~F LEESon average 10-B times as much drinking water, food, fuel, metals, etc, as in d~vel~~i~~ c~u~tri~~, and pohutes the ~n~ir~nrnent about as much more with wastes. The question is whether the lo- or ZO-fold increase in these processes is possible, if multiplied by the population of developing countries, Will the Earth be able to bear this additional pressure? Soviet, experts correctly consider that a positive answer to these questions would be an apparent sirn~lificat~~~ of the problem IRuzvlv~yyushchi~e~~~~ strait: ?~~~k~. , ,, 1975). Sta~dards~ targets and ideals uf the western kind of ‘c~ns~~~er society’ are ~~ac~e~tabI~ for the c~~tinn~d d~~eIt~~rn~~t of civilization on our planet. In mctst d~v~l~~j~g countries the principal task is to meet the essential ~rni~irn~l~ needs of the ~~~uIati~~ - provision of food, drinking water, ~rn~l~yrn~nt~ ~I~~~~ntary educative and basic b~alth-~r~t~cti~n ~~~asur~s. Soviet geographers are bec~rni~g more and more ents of ~Ian~ing concerned with the “many co _>C, S,] and the ~i~cInding regi~~al ~Ian~~~g nt of scXia1 ef~ecti~e~ess~ the bighorn a e of ~hicb being b~~~a~ ba~~i~~ss~~ ~S~~S~~~~~ 298t& p. 2Q

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Problem

(edited by Misra and Honjo). In the synopsis of this volume, it was stressed: “Since development is no longer measured by economic growth, many former growth analysts are now talking about basic needs, direct attack on poverty, income distribution, social justice, and even zero growth”. Moreover, the editors rightly stress that neither an unquestioned adherence to the economic growth concept nor, on the contrary, its total suspension can promote the solution of the most important problem of elimination of poverty around the globe. The middle of the 1970s can possibly be fixed as the threshold in respect to the concept of ‘polarized development’, suggested by Perroux in the mid1950s. The culmination of this concept in the 1960s gave way to its decline; the fashion for it has passed away, as has the enthusiasm aroused by the ‘quantitative revolution’. However, publication is still continuing of the last volumes of the ten-volume series issued by UNRISD. Geneva, which are devoted to problems of regional development, based mainly on this concept. However, it is symptomatic that among the critics of the above concept one finds by the end of the 1970s some of its earlier active adherents, e.g. John Friedmann. In 1979 he stated that growth foci had ceased to be a coin in good circulation (FRIEDMANN and WEAVER, 1979). The concept of ‘growth poles’ was heavily criticized by several scientists; for instance, at the First Asian Symposium on Regional Planning and National Development in Mysore, 1974. The report by Congstad - Director of the Copenhagen Institute of Development Research - was devoted to criticism of the studies by Perroux and Friedmann, who applied this concept to Venezuela and other Latin American countries. According to Congstad, Friedmann primarily justifies the modern development of peripheral capitalism by his assertion that development is integration with the world capitalist system. In Congstad’s view, Friedmann should be numbered with the ‘dualists’, who recognise the existence of productive-territorial dualism in developing countries but suggest no ways of eliminating it. At the session of the IGU Commission on Regional Aspects of Development during the XXII International Geographical Congress (Dushanbe, 1976), Taylor underlined that in developing the theory of polarized growth, Friedmann saw large cities as growth poles, spreading modernization and

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promoting the uplift of rural areas in developing countries, but he commented that it is not yet clear whether large cities promote uplift or impoverishment of such areas. Taylor notes, “if development is equal to the colonial western pattern then we can measure it and extend modernization from core to periphery and happily follow the Friedmann model and others of that type” (TAYLOR, 1976). Sometimes Western experts notice that “Soviet authors . . . were much less violent in their critique of the growth foci concept” (FRIEDMANN and WEAVER, 1979), justly stressing that “the absence of a market economy [more accurately, of a capitalist one - S.L., G.S] lends a realism to Soviet discussions of this concept, which is generally missing in the West”, and concluding, “While the Soviets went ahead and built their complexes, western theorists debated the merits of innovation diffusion from hypothetical growth centres” (FRIEDMANN and WEAVER, 1979, p. 178). It can be stated that Soviet scientists both avoided extreme enthusiasm over the concept of growth foci in its heyday and also do not consider this concept ‘guilty’ for giving no solution to many problems of depressed regions in developed capitalist countries or in many developing economies. In Soviet publications this concept is considered as a particular case of “the general theory of concentration of economic activity and polarized regional development, which is distinguished first of all by broader historicalgoegraphical and spatial-demographic aspects” (GOKHMAN et al., 1978, p. 102). Forming concentrations of social activity is a natural process, but its functional content decisively depends on the general socio-economic and political conditions of a particular country {or a certain type of country), on their natural historic situation and in what class interests are general and regional policies being implemented. Regional problems are ‘secondary’, determined by the general socio-economic development. The crisis situation in the capitalist world in the 1970s which most seriously and first of all affected the old depressed regions and which got no benefits from the efforts of regional planning based on the growth poles concept, could not but influence the attitudes to this concept. The ideas of ‘agropolitan development’, concepts of ‘development from below’, selective ‘closing of regions’, etc. from the mid 1970s on were more and more often formulated as a new paradigm, the antipode of the recently dominant concept of polarized development. ‘New

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the efforts to revitalize the autonregionalism’, omous local development (primarily as a means to lessen the unemployment rates, to improve the ‘quality of life’, etc.), can be interpreted as a reaction to the omnipotent power of the ‘centre’, which aggravates local problems of life. Austrian economists-regionalists Shtor and Todling wrote that the subjective perception of the conditions of life by individual regional communities reflects the growing dissatisfaction of the subnational social groups (including local and regional ones) at the increased influence on them of external economic and political determinants (large-scale functional changes), and their weaker ability to resist them and to determine their own destiny under large and ever-widening economic and political systems. Obviously it is not by chance that in the crisis period “regions and communes were turned into . . . the central field of conflicts” (Information zw Reumentwickfung, 1980); politicization of the notion ‘region’ is taking place. This process is encouraged by the broad movement for environment protection, which is inevitably related to regional problems and local interests, also by numerous ‘civil initiatives’ in many countries and regions. The concept of ‘development from below’ is more and more often termed “new directions of hope: recent innovations interconnecting organizational, industrial, community and personal development” (TRIST, 1979). The suggested concept of ‘renewal from below’ is a symptomatic reaction to a situation becoming more complicated, but it does not include the determinants of development and can at best provide a palliative of some social animation, without a solution for the major problems of regional and general socio-economic development.

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trophic growth of one or more urban regions coupled with extreme social-economic backwardness of the basic agricultural background. Regional problems are distinguished by great complexity and importance in the socialist countries as well: these are the problems of combination of sectoral and spatial planning, problems of opening up and developing gigantic new regions, etc. Geography, one of the most ancient sciences, has always served the vital needs of society; for centuries its major function was in the exploration of ‘unlimited’ global space. Now, when the globe ‘shrinks’ before our eyes, when ‘unlimitedness’ of resources is seen to be replaced by their finite character, geography is called on to find and show ways for the optimal organization of ‘shrinking’ space. This is an incomparably more complicated task, which requires new approaches, interdisciplinary regional research and reappraisal of regional development concepts in the light of the complicated problems of today. References CHETYRKIN, V. M. (1976) Problemnyye Voprosy Ekonomicheskogo Rayonirovaniya (Problematic Questions of Economic Regionalization). Tashkent. FRIEDMANN, J. and WEAVER, C. (1979) Territory and Function. The Evolution of Regional Planning.

Arnold, London. GOKHMAN, V. M., ILYIN, P. M. and LIPETS, YU.G. (1978) Znacheniye fokusov rosta v regional’nom razvitii (The importance of growth foci in regional development), In: Geograficheskiye Problemy Regional’nogo Razvitiya i Gosudarstvennoye Dokladov Sovetsko-Indiyskogo

Planirovaniye. Tezisy Simposiuma. Tbilisi.

GVISHIANI, D. M. (1979) Metodologicheskiye problemy izucheniya global’nykh protsessov (Methodological problems of studying global processes), Ekono-

mika i Matematicheskiye Metody, 15. Information zur Reumentwicklung No. 5 (1980)

JONES, In general, the importance of regional problems is growing throughout the whole world and at all levels, from global to local. At the global level these are the problems of growing disparities in levels of socio-economic development of developing and developed economies, as well as other leading global problems. In the capitalist countries there is a crisis of poverty in regions and cities, a transformation into the ‘impoverished’ class of many regions with a backward industrial structure or monostructure. In the developing countries these are the problems of overcoming the economy’s spatial structure of a colonial type with all its manifestations - lack conglomerate character, hyperof integration,

E. (1979) Contemporary British geography, 10 215-218. LAVROV, S. B., PREOBRAZHENSKIY, V. S. and SDASYUK, G. V. (1979) Sovremennaya “radikal’naya geografiya” Zapada: korni, istoriya, positsii. (Modern “radical geography” of the West: roots, history, positions), Izvestiya AN SSSR, Ser. Geogr. PEET, R. and SLATER, D. (1980) Reply to Soviet review of radical geography, Soviet Geography, 21. PIP FORER (1978) A place for plastic space? Prog. Geoforum,

Human Geogr., 2. Razvivayushchiyesya Strany: Nauka, Tekhnika, Ekonomicheskiy Rost. (Developing Countries: Science, Technology, Growth) (1975) Mysl’, Moscow.

SAUSHKIN, YU.G. (1980) Aspekty sovetskoy sotsial’noy geografii (Aspects of Soviet social geography), Voprosy geografii, 115.

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TAYLOR, D. R. F. (1976) Restructuring space in Africa. XXIII IGC, Dushanbe. (mimeo). Tezisy Vyrabotanqye Komissiyey VTslK po Voprosu ob Ekonomicheskom Rayonirovanii Rossii (Theses Devel-

17 oped by VTslK Commission on Economic Regionalizatiori of Russia) (1957). Sbornik materialov i statei (1917-1929). Politizdat, Moscow. TRIST, E. (1979) New directions of hope, Reg. Stud., 13.