Planning Concepts and Regional Research

T HE CONTRIBUTIONS to regional research made in the field of planning have tended to be of a somewhat different nature ttian those made by the various natural and social science disciplines. Planning study has been policyand action-oriented. It has focused on the linkage between knowledge, and search for knowledge, about the universe and man in society, on the one side, and policy decisions and action programs on the other. Thus planning contributions to knowledge about regions, as about other matters, have tended to come largely from this type of linkage, from something resembling a circular-flow process of study directed at policy decisions and additional and improved knowledge flowing from action programs. An example of this in the metropolitan field is the concepts and techniques involved in urban land-use classification which have served to advance knowledge about population and industrial movements, industrial and service requirements, and related subjects. Research aimed at clarifying and describing land-use patterns has been promoted chiefly by the requirements of designing land use regulations, such as zoning and subdivision control. Simultaneously, the experience with zoning and subdivision control has served to enlarge knowledge about land-use patterns in a feedback manner (even though, I should hasten to add, the regulatory programs themselves may have generally fallen far short of achieving the purposes for which they were designed). Another example is provided by the concept of unified multiple-purpose resource development to which planning has contributed and which has helped to enlarge our knowledge about regions. This concept evolved in large part from the requirements of designing resource development legislation and programs, but even more from the actual experience in the Tennessee Valley and elsewhere, of planning and carrying out developmental programs. Thus, if one were to look for the contributions to regional research which have been provided by the field of planning, one should, as a general principle, expect to find them in precisely those fields where planning practice has been most firmly established. The major contributions so derived have already been well documented and are undoubtedly familiar to those concerned with regional research. In recent years, another facet has been added to planning research. It promises to provide an additional dimension to future planning contributions. I should like to discuss a few aspects of this development, dealing with subjects which can be said to be hardly more than in the process of formulation. The research development I refer to is the systematic study of the planning process itself, that is, study about planning-in generalized terms-and apart from the research associated with specific planning operations and dealing with specific situations. (This is a development which has a close analogy in the field of administration; research in the latter field has increasingly attempted to evolve a systematic body of knowledge about the subject.) Because the study of the planning process is at a relatively primitive stage, it has not yet developed a theoretical framework adequate for application to regional analysis as such. Therefore, my references to regional problems will have to be * Presented before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, December 30, 1952. Session topic was "Regional Research: Emerging Concepts and Techniques."