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The paper provides a systematic comparison of regional planning in four Central European nations. Despite different political ideologies and institutional arrangements for regional planning, it is argued that the countries' regional problems and regional planning goals, strategies, and measures have a number of similarities. An idealized regional planning ‘system’ is used to review the planning experience of each nation and to compare and contrast it to the others.

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. American Geographical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Geographical Review. ABSTRACT. Reduction of infant mortality has been an important public-policy goal inEast and West Germany since 1950. Overall rates remain above those in other highly developed European countries. Causes of the persistently high rates lie in interrelated social factors. Air pollution is emerging as a contributory factor. PATTERNSand processes of regional socioeconomic well-being are important topics in the social and economic geography of East and West Germany.1 Comparison of trends in infant mortality through time and space in the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic allows assessment of two different socioeconomic political systems in improving general human well-being and reducing regional socioeconomic inequalities.2 This study spans a two-decade era of rapid growth and development in both countries, when health care improved considerably. Two broad questions may be posed about the regional variations in improved well-being as expressed in health care. How steady has progress been in socioeconomic development during the period? How do these spatial-tem- poral patterns compare or contrast in the two Germanies? This study addresses these research issues and investigates the apparent causes of regional variations in infant mortality both within and between the two countries.Infant mortality is one of the best, if not the best, measure of socioeconomic well-being available to social science. Unlike measures of average income per capita, levels of well-being, measured by infant mortality or health in general, are not inflated by extremely favorable conditions among a select high-income group. Infant mortality is a phenomenon that can affect any family, and reduction of its incidence is a goal for all national healthcare systems. Levels of infant mortality often correlate highly with other indexes of well-being, including income.3Varied levels of infant mortality among social groups result from differential access to or actual use of health care. Access can be restricted, for