Growth Areas, Growth Centres and Regional Conversion*

Abstract

Summary Five arguments in favour of a growth area strategy have been analysed and though all of them lack empirical substance, they have certain merits on a priori grounds. Thus any policy which contributes, on the long‐run, to a more rapid concentration of a region's population into relatively large urban areas, is likely to create the conditions for servicing net and replacement demand for social/economic overhead capital at a low per capita cost. Moreover for a given subsidy cost, discriminatory investment in the dense, complex, urbanised areas of a region may maximise the flow of income to regional earners in the short‐run: attract the maximum flow of exogenous enterprise and capital; and give the best chance of creating a new export base which reduces the regional balance‐of‐payments deficit and provides sufficient job‐opportunities to restrain the flow out of the region of the economically active. In addition, the quality and content of shortterm regional planning may be improved if the mix and scheduling of public investment over time is given a rigorous spatial dimension. Thus, on all of these counts, there are convincing reasons for encouraging an especially rapid development of the relative large, dense interrelated urban areas and by contrast good reasons for a relative neglect of the small hinterland areas.

Gibrat's Law and the Growth of Cities in Brazil: A Panel Data Investigation

“…In fact, a similar regularity has attracted recent interest in the context of the growth of cities (see, for example, Clark and Stabler, 1991;and Guérin-Pace, 1995). Differential costs for providing public services may manifest distinct returns to scale in accordance with city size (see, for example, Cameron, 1970). Clark and Stabler (1991) have associated constant economies of size for cities with unit roots in firm size.…”

Old Industrial Areas: A Theoretical Approach

“…But even in detailed studies for OIAs the structural component is weaker than expected: Cameron (1970) in his study of the Clydeside region suggested that the high locational component called for further explanation. The negative structural concentration may be the starting point for an analysis, and it can influence further factors which are important for growth, but it cannot be regarded as the reason for slow growth.…”

Public investment impacts and regional economic growth

“…The theory just outlined has implications for the spatial distribution of water and other public investments designed to accelerate regional economic growth. The growth center strategy for regional development has attracted wide interest among economists [e.g., Hansen, 1969Hansen, , 1971Hansen, , 1972Cameron, 1970;Robinson, 1969] Although Alonso [1971, p. 70] is probably correct when he says that the existing growth center theory 'hovers somewhere between intuition and poetry,' there appears to be a consensus among economists that, in general, cities below 25,000 population offer little or no promise of the self-sustained growth necessary to provide the migration alternative or spread effects that are policy objectives. The growth center must be large enough to provide an efficient infrastructure and to allow and promote the growth of external economies, which are necessary for the city to capture a growing share of the nation's employment.…”