The environment in regional science: An eclectic review

The environment, broadly construed, is increasingly a salient topic in regional science research. Theoretical and empirical inquiries by regional scientists have progressively begun to address the manifold environmental ramifications of regional science questions. As such, there now exists a sizeable literature on what we may call the environment in regional science. Given this state of affairs, the purpose of this article is to survey this extensive literature. To provide sufficient focus, we do this by discussing five key issues in the extant literature on the environment in regional science. These issues are: (i) regional economic development, (ii) environmental regulation, (iii) natural resources, (iv) international affairs, and (v) geographic information systems. Our survey is both retrospective and prospective in nature. We are interested not only in what has been accomplished thus far but also in where research on the environment in regional science is headed in the future.JEL Classification: R00, R10, Q20We thank the guest-editors and an anonymous referee for their constructive comments on a previous version of this article. Batabyal acknowledges financial support from the Gosnell endowment at RIT. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Regional science: back to the future?

After initiating a provocative discussion on “regional science in crisis” (Bailly and Coffey 1994; Gibson 1994; Plane 1994; Stough 1994; Anas 1994; Vickerman 1994; Casetti 1995), we now wish to present some additional thoughts on how regional scientists can simultaneously make their field more relevant scientifically and more useful for society. At a time when resources are tight, when the number of regional science students is small, when administrators are scrutinizing our budgets and our ability to generate outside money, we need to do something to regain (or is it simply to gain?) our place in the sun. In this paper, we argue that regional scientists will not reestablish their field by using classical approaches to regional analysis alone. It is essential that we look at new ways to answer questions raised by our social, economic, and political institutions. More specifically, we make some observations concerning the history of regional science, its role within universities, and its nature, as well as offering some suggestions concerning how regional scientists can attempt to improve the situation.     

Institutionalizing regional science

Regional Science is alive and well. If we wish to maintain our position we need to explore ways to expand our numbers and the constituencies that we serve. Expanding undergraduate and graduate teaching programs, fostering more discussion of client-driven work at our meetings and in our journals, and actively encouraging participation by non-university based researchers and even regional development practitioners are all ways to promote multiple-constituency regional science. If one of these options is to be emphasized in the short term, I would suggest encouraging participation by non-university based researchers and more discussion of client-driven research. These strategies are often at least partially in place now, they benefit from the rigorous scientific work that is our core business, and they will help assure the institutionalization of „full service” regional science. Received: February 1998/Accepted: March 1998     

Two frontiers for regional science: Regional policy and interdisciplinary reach

In this note, I address two frontiers where we, as regional scientists, can raise the visibility and impact of regional science and enlarge the community of scholars in our fold. The first is the resurgence of regionalism as a phenomenon and policy arena. My argument here is that many politicians, practitioners and citizens are actively debating the health and future of metropolitan regions, but we are not playing the intellectual role that we could be. The second frontier involves expanding the interdisciplinary reach of regional science towards the 'softer' social and policy sciences, especially in the direction of sociology, political science, and city and regional planning. My argument here is that our tools of analysis, especially our understanding of agents and institutions, would be more powerful if amplified by selected contributions from neighboring fields. Received: 6 January 2001 / Accepted: 21 January 2002     

Regional science: Directions for the future

Academic disciplines evolve and regional science is no exception. Physics, French or economics changes over time but at the end of the day (or decade), they remain physics, French or economics. But regional science is different; it can take on the perspectives of geography, economics, planning, or other social sciences. At its best, perhaps regional science is a composite of these; many therefore think that the inevitable tension between these content areas and scientific and non-scientific orientations is not only healthy but is also essential. Balancing perspectives and managing tensions in a discipline where both basic and applied research is appropriate is challenging. Combine this with the fact of rapid change and increased competition for limited resources in academic institutions with regional science programmes. From this starting point it seems worthwhile to revisit how we manage regional science and position it within our universities and within our graduates job markets. We propose a model sensitive to both the supply side and the demand side, which indicates that we proactively cultivate markets within and outside educational institutions. We discuss the need for introductory regional science courses at the undergraduate level and for programmes at the masters and Ph.D. levels that transfer existing knowledge and prepare the next generation for intellectual and technical leadership in the field of regional science.JEL Classification: A12, A20, B30, R10We would like to thank the colleagues who offered comments on various drafts of this article. We are especially grateful to Professor William M. Bowen, Dr. Lorraine Craig, Gérard Widmer, and the anonymous reviewers and guest-editors for detailed and thoughtful suggestions.     

Eating to your hearts delight

Food and knowledge of food is an essential part of life. Knowledge about how to get enough and how to get it right is an essential part of all cultures. Since food is vital, nutrition policy is critical. Nutrition policy is about who should eat what, why, when and how in order to promote better health. This article deals with the politics of nutrition, which is about who eats what, why, when, how, and with what impact on their lives. For food, whether it is scarce or abundant, affects people unequally, hence food has always been a social concern. Regulating its supply has been a source of civilization. The state of nutrition is one of the most potent indicators of the state of society. Hence, food is also one of the oldest objects of politics--indeed, one cannot think of politics without it. This is the first issue I will address: by offering a capsule history of humanity from the perspective of the politics of nutrition. Next, I will address, in a similarly compressed history, the development of the science of nutrition, as nutrition policy has become based on research--particularly on medical science. Finally, I will address nutrition policy as a subpart of the politics of nutrition--how it has been defined and how it has developed, its changing agendas and current concerns.     

传统文化的缩影——梅兰芳大剧院

随着科学技术的发展，全球化现象愈演愈烈。外来文化不断涌入中国，致使我们的传统文化、建筑特色逐步消逝。在此情况下，我们的建筑师该何去何从？该如何拯救我们的传统文化？该如何打造出具有中国特色的现代建筑？以梅兰芳京剧院为例，来阐述在全球化背景下，建筑师所作出的努力。     

建筑底层架空式开放空间设计初探

分析了建筑底层架空式开放空间的发展历史,空间特点及应用,认为其具有灰空间,开放性、地域性等特点,是城市公共开放空间的重要组成部分,指出我们应通过全社会的共同努力,提倡建筑底层架空设计,改善当前城市公共开放空间匮乏的状况。     

The 21st Century Urban University: New Roles for Practice and Research

Richard Estes' image of a view of Manhattan from the Staten Island Ferry before September 11, 2001 juxtaposes two symbols representing the choice John Friedmann poses for us in his Longer View. On the right are the World Trade Center towers, now a symbol of America's vulnerability and possible need to retrench and protect itself. On the left is the Statue of Liberty, welcoming everyone to an open city and an open nation, despite the danger this might entail. Friedmann's essay argues for steering a course toward openness, with its many associated responsibilities and privileges.

Estes is one of the best known artists of the photorealism movement in painting. Originally from Illinois, he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago before working as a commercial artist in publishing and advertising and then painting full time. His works hang in The Art Institute of Chicago, the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC, among others. He currently lives and works in New York and Maine.

In the aftermath of September 11, there is a heightened sense of fear in our country and much talk about how to protect ourselves against terrorists and other threats to our lives and peace of mind. To counter the natural desire to retreat into fortress America, I propose a more positive strategy, an agenda for action to create what I call the Open City. Four aspects of this agenda are discussed: reducing the urban footprint, drafting charters of local citizenship, meeting basic human needs, and working towards new forms of city-regional governance. This article proposes the Open City as a series of experimental projects in major metropolitan regions across the country, arguing that planners have the requisite powers to set such projects in motion. Success in carrying them out would, at the same time, serve as an inspiration for cities beyond our own borders.     

Regional analytics

This paper was originally presented as a presidential address for the 56th Annual Meeting of the Western Regional Science Association, held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on February 15–18, 2017. The intent of the paper is to discuss the continued importance of analytical methods to further knowledge and understanding, and in doing so contribute to enhanced analysis, planning, policy and decision making in a variety of contexts. Regional science is founded on the principle of being a multi-disciplinary effort, bringing together a range of quantitative approaches to study societal issues and concerns through planning and policy efforts, hopefully to bring about positive change. Analytics is an increasingly popular reference to the methods employed by a discipline or specialty area. Given the prominence of methods in regional science, it is suggestive of a more nuanced term like regional analytics. It is hoped that reflecting on regional analytics will reinforce the significance and strength of our discipline in the coming years and decades. It is only through our actions that we will make a difference, and we hope that such actions are based on the best information and scientific reasoning possible.     

AN INTERPRETATION OF THE IMPACT OF REGIONAL SCIENCE IN TERMS OF PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

ABSTRACT: This article evaluates the performance of regional science from the perspective of the philosophy of science. The debate regarding the field's performance has drawn wide interest among those working in regional science and has been a stimulus to consider and reinterpret a number of approaches in the philosophy of science. It is believed that an evaluation and reinterpretation of the major approaches in the philosophy of science, such as the positivist, humanistic and structuralist outlooks, could be useful in helping make an ultimate evaluation of the recent literature regarding regional science. In this article, a comparison is made between those paradigms within the development processes that are relevant to regional science and with respect to differentiation between less developed countries (LDC) and developed countries. It is concluded that despite the considerable achievements that have occurred in regional science from the 1950s up to the present some significant questions in the field suggest requirements for a paradigm change, particularly for a field of knowledge that can be applied to developing areas.     

Understanding Community Communications

The architectural design studio is an anomaly in the contemporary research university. Its underlying theories of professional knowledge and teaching are at odds with those of other university-based professional schools. This represents an opportunity: the studio has much to teach other professional schools on the basis of its traditions of education through coaching and learning-by-doing. On the other hand, what is the place of applied science in the studio? This question triggers a more general issue about science education for the professions. I have suggested how teaching what scientists do, rather than their research results, could influence science teaching in the studio. When considered this way, scientific research and architectural design bear a much closer family resemblance to each other.     

Sonic environmental aesthetics and landscape research

The environmental aesthetics literature has primarily focused on the aesthetic qualities and values of landscapes. Within this scholarship, there has been a modest but steady advancement towards explicitly attending to the aesthetic experience of landscape sounds. In this paper, I review the theoretical and applied sonic aesthetics literature pertinent to landscape research, and identify some existing weaknesses. In particular, I demonstrate that there is an ongoing tendency to limit discussions to what is sonically pleasing or displeasing within a given landscape, which, I argue, provides a limited point of entry through which to consider the full scope of landscape sounds. I then turn to offer some ways to address these weaknesses—notably through what I term the development of a ‘sensitive ear’, and through field recording strategies—in the hope that this will allow scholars to better enfold sonic environmental aesthetics within future theoretical and applied landscape research.     

Reasserting the importance of qualitative methods in planning

The goals of this paper are to suggest what is lost by ignoring field research and to reassert the significance of qualitative research methods to the field of urban and regional planning. I assume that methodological choices between quantitative and qualitative methods are a matter of determining which research method is best suited to capture a particular ‘data slice’. Research methods are techniques to retrieve data and carry no theoretical baggage to bias their data set. To illustrate the significance of field research I discuss three points. First, I illustrate some of the technical strengths and weaknesses associated with qualitative research approaches, and highlight three important issues that are lost without field research methods: a link between planning researchers and the people they plan for, quality of life issues, and informal/illegal activity. Second, I propose that by pursuing a mixed-method research methodology, some of the issues lost by ignoring field research methods can be recaptured. Finally, I give an example of how I researched informal street vendors as part of the urban landscape through a mixed-method approach. This paper argues that until planning research re-evaluate what is being lost by their pursuit of quantitative methods, critical problems in the social realm will continue to lack the attention they need from urban and regional planners.Why all that obsession with Method? Because it was through Method that you arrived at the solution... (Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum, 1989, p. 384)     

Regional science in the Netherlands: A contextual interpretation of the “power of smallness”

This paper provides an overview of regional science research in the Netherlands since the 1960s. It adopts a contextual thematic approach in identifying and interpreting regional science research topics, practices and methodologies, inspired by Toynbee's challenge and response concept. It argues that place-based, cultural and historical conditions in the Netherlands have prompted a pragmatic and evidence-based scientific approach, in which in particular an innovative quantitative orientation accompanied by a methodological heterogeneity has given Dutch regional science a high international profile. Over the past decades, numerous regional scientists in the country have contributed to this achievement, too many to be mentioned in this overview. This paper has its limitations and offers mainly thematic examples of original—often quantitative—research undertaken by various Dutch regional scientists, that make a difference compared to general approaches in Europe and world-wide. From our concise review we conclude that – despite the small size of the country – the challenge and creative response model of Dutch regional science has been rather successful.     

Design in THE Age of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is playing an everincreasing role in our lives, but what impacts might it have on the design professions? Will it introduce a new style? Or will it just help to improve the design process? Or will it have a completely different impact? This article attempts to offer an overview of the potential of Artificial Intelligence, defining the different forms of Artificial Intelligence, and illustrating its argument with the work of three designers. It argues that Artificial Intelligence will not generate a new style. However, it will have a radical input on the process of designing. It is also likely to force us to call into question many accepted beliefs within the design community. Certain traditional terms, such as the concept of a “design” and the very notion of “designing,” are likely to be replaced by a new lexicon that includes terms such as “searching” and “outcomes.” But, more importantly, the whole myth of the “artistic genius” is likely to be also called into question. What Artificial Intelligence tells us, as the paper concludes, is not how “artificial” Artificial Intelligence is, but rather how misguided our own understanding of human intelligence has been.     

Exogenous and endogenous spatial growth models

In this paper, we investigate the impact on aggregate regional utility as a result of both exogenous growth and endogenous growth in a spatial system. We will first analyze the case of two closed regions, followed by the case of two open regions. The main instrument used in our approach to study the changes in collective regional welfare is Dynamic Programming. The traditional exogenous Solow growth model forms the basis of our paper. The analysis of this model will be extended to a comparison of two closed regions with exogenous growth. By introducing a case of a common labour market, we are able to investigate exogenous growth between two open regions. For the analysis of endogenous growth, we adopt the same structure as the one used for the investigation of exogenous growth models. In this framework, an investment in knowledge is considered as the endogenous driving force. Finally, we take a closer look at the timing of cost-reducing investments. In total, seven related but distinct cases are identified and studied in more detail.     

Review Article: Economic Planning

The American urban and regional planner has available to him a growing number of works on economic planning. In part this reflects our recent awareness of underdeveloped areas, in part a suspicion that East and West, after all, have much in common and might well learn from each other. Finally, the very expansion of research seems to open new fields for analysis. This review article will, first, touch on some writings on the theory and practice of economic planning, and second, relate this material to the tasks and interests of the urban and regional planner.¹