Aregionis anarea on Earth'ssurface marked by a degree of formal,functional, or perceptualhom*ogeneity of somephenomenon.The three main types of regions areformal, functional, and vernacular regions. Aformal region,also known as a uniform or hom*ogeneous region,is an area in which everyone shares in common one or more distinctivecharacteristics. This common characteristic could be a cultural value such aslanguage, an economic activity such as production of a certain crop, or anenvironmental property such as climate and weather patterns. Whatever thecommon characteristic is, it sis present throughout the selected region. Incertain formal regions, the characteristic may be predominant rather thanuniversal, such as the wheat belt in North America, it is an area in which thepredominant crop is wheat, but other crops are grown here as well.
Afunctional region,also known asa nodal region, is a region organized around a node or focal point. Thecharacteristic chosen to define a functional region dominates at a centralfocus or node and diminishes in importance outward. The region is tied to thecentral point by transportation, communication systems or by economic orfunctional associations. An example of a functional region is the circulationarea of a newspaper. That area is centered around the city in which thenewspaper is published in. The farther away from the city of circulation, theless people that read the newspaper (this phenomenon is known as distancedecay). Avernacular region,alsoknown as perceptual region, is a place that people exists as part of theircultural identity. Perceptual regions vary from person to person. They emergefrom a person' s informal sense of place. An example of a vernacular regionwould be the South. My idea of the southern states may be different than myfriend's idea of southern states.
Types of Regions onthe Basis of Stages of Economic Development
1) Developed / DevelopmentRegions
Developedregions are naturally those which are having a high rate of accretion in goodsand services i.e., their share in the GDP of the country is relatively higher.This may be with or without rich natural resources by most certainly because ofthe use of upgraded technology by highly skilled and motivated persons. Adeveloped region may become ‘overdeveloped’ in certain respects e.g., it maysuffer from the diseconomies of congestion. Infrastructure costs become veryhigh and people can go into the jitters due to pollution and stresses ofvarious types. A developed region is the counterpart of the backward region:the ‘positive’ side is emphasized in case of the developed region while‘negative’ aspects are emphasized in case of the backward region.
Adeveloped region is one, which has exploited its potentialities fully, whichhas removed the bottlenecks and speed breakers of development. Developedregions emerge of their own because of the comparative advantage or may emergeas a result of the diversion of funds by the government. In many casesimbalances emerge between developed and backward regions and these imbalancescan be the creation of planners also. Many times disproportionately highamounts of investment are made in the constituencies of the influentialpoliticians and some regions become far more developed than the neighboringregions.
2) Backward Regions
Therecan be ‘backward or depressed’ regions in the developing as well as thedeveloped economies. Backward economies are thoroughly depressed regions. Thereis development even in these regions but these regions have not come out of thelow level equilibrium trap. There can be region, which may not be atsubsistence level but may be relatively backward. Lack of infrastructurefacilities, adverse geo-climate conditions, low investment rate, high rate ofgrowth of population and low levels of urbanization and industrialization arecauses and consequences of backwardness.
Inless developed countries, even the most ancient occupation (agriculture) isbackward and unless it is made progressive with massive real and financialinput support, the region cannot come out of backwardness. Some vestigialregions (as the regions inhabited by the red Indians in USA/ or tribal inIndia) can remain backward and may even remain near the subsistence level. Theinhibitions may have ancient traditions and may be smug in their surroundings,but the per capita income may be much lower than in the neighboring regions. Aregion can be backward because of the high population density or even withoutit.
3) Neutral Regions/ IntermediateRegions
Newtowns and satellite belts are designated as ‘neutral’ regions and they promisegood prospects of further development because here further employmentgeneration and income propagation is possible without congestion. Such regionscan be demarcated around urban centers. Intermediate regions are those regions,which are ‘islands of development around a sea of stagnation’.
Types of Regions Based onthe Activity Status Analysis
1) Mineral regions
Manymineral regions promise high growth rates for the region as well as for theprosperity of the country. If mineral- based industries can be developed in theregion itself, then industrial development will be less costly because much ofthe load shedding will be done in the region at low cost. The iron ore depositsof Bailadeela (Bastar District of Madhya Pradesh) are exported abroad, a plantcould be established near the ore deposits, it would have brought tremendousdevelopment for the region. As the mines continue to yield sufficient mineralsand the costs are also not prohibitive, not only the mineral producing regiondevelops but it helps other regions also to develop.
Afterthe minerals exhaust, the region will bear degraded look, people will move awayto other areas and the erstwhile area will bear a deserted look. Germany tookgreat pains to rehabilitate such areas and vast pits and trenches were suitablyreclaimed for various purposes like water storage, eco-forestry and evencultivation after enriching the soil. If new deposits of minerals cannot bediscovered, there can be several ways of reclaiming wasteland and developingnon-mineral based activities. Regional planning will require a long-term planfor developing such regions after extraction is no longer a profitableactivity. The Middle East countries have made adequate planning to diversifytheir economies so that after the oil wealth exhausts their economies do not relapseto backwardness.
2) Manufacturing Regions andCongested Regions
Someregions become big manufacturing regions not because they have naturalresources but because of the infrastructure development, momentum of an earlystart, continued government support etc. Autonomous, imitative, supplementary,complementary, induced and speculative investments keep in giving strength tothe manufacturing regions. It would be prudent not to develop narrowmanufacturing base, otherwise territorial specialization can become a problemif the crop supplying the raw materials fails or if the minerals which are basefor the industries, exhaust. In such regions the internal and externaleconomies are available in ever greater measure and such regions keep ondeveloping. When all the thresholds are crossed, such regions become toocongested and the diseconomies overwhelm the economies of production – highdensity, increasing pollution, reduction in the quality of life etc.
3) Cultural Regions
Acultural region can also be quite well demarcated. (French Canada and EnglishCanada are such regions). In India various states are demarcated on the basisof language and culture primarily. There are affinities of cultural origin insuch region. A rich cultured region should be rich in economic terms also.
Regions in RegionalEconomics
1) hom*ogenous Region
Theyare formal regions and on the basis of hom*ogeneity in topography, rainfall,climate or other geo-physical characteristic. Economic hom*ogeneity is morerelevant for planning. The structure of employment, the occupational pattern,the net migration, the density of population, the resource and industrialstructure, if similar in a space, the regions become hom*ogeneous in economicsense. The greater the economic similarities, the greater the interest theeconomists will have in hom*ogeneous regions. Internal differences in a regionare unimportant. Sometimes, a clear cut hom*ogeneous region may have, manydifferences in sub-regions as to make them quite different yet a region may remain‘hom*ogeneous’.
Scotlandor Uttar Pradesh are clear cut hom*ogeneous regions but in topography the hillydistricts of Uttar Pradesh have nothing in common with the districts of theplains. Eastern and Western districts are also different but Uttar Pradeshremains a hom*ogeneous region in administrative terms. Thus a hom*ogeneouseconomic region can have differing physical characteristics. hom*ogeneous regionon economic or political criterion may have a lot of heterogeneity from severalother stand points.
Ø Formal Regions
Regions defined formally, often by governmentor other structures, are called formalregions. Cities, towns, states, and countries are all formal regions, asare things like mountain ranges. Formal regions often nest inside one another, sothat when you are standing in the middle of Trivandrum, you are in the city ofTrivandrum, which is part of state of Kerala, which rests inside the southernregion of India, which is in the country of India, which is on the continent ofAsia. All of those are formal regions.
Aformal region is hom*ogeneous with reference to some geo-physical characteristicsuch as topography, climate of vegetation. This is physical formal region.Later on there was a shift from this narrow approach to a broader approach andeconomic, social and political criteria were also applied. An industrial oragricultural or plantation region is a formal economic region; or a stategoverned by a particular party is a formal political region.
Ø Functional regions
It consist of a central place and thesurrounding areas that are dependent upon that place, such as a metropolitanarea. Thefunctional region is concerned with interdependence. This is a geographicalarea in which there is economic interdependence. The nodal regions are functionalregions between which there are flows of men, material and money.
Ø Vernacular regions
A vernacular region is an area that has beenidentified based on people's perception of culture.
2) Polarized / Nodal /Heterogeneous / Functional Regions
Polarizedor nodal regions look to a centre-a large town usually-for service. Itsinfluence extends beyond the area of the city. The villages are dependent uponit for services and marketing. There is little concern for uniformity when apolarized or nodal region is taken. The city region need not correspond to theadministrative region because hinterland of several clear cut regions may beserved by a city. (For example even the persons of Gwalior may visit Delhi forbuying some consumer durables of high value. A capital city may attractcustomers form several districts around the capital city.)
Anodal region will have heterogeneous economy around it. Regional economists aremore concerned with what happens within a nodal region and spatial dimension ofthe nodal region assumes importance. Population and industries agglomerate andthere are core regions with higher per capita income generation through higherproduction of goods and services. Within regions there are dominant cities ornodes to which flows of inputs, goods, people and traffic gravitate. Within thecities there are nuclei that form business and social centres and which arediscernible at a glance from an intra-metropolitan traffic-flow density map.
Asthe distance increases, the costs of overcoming frictions will rise and thepeople of different areas will look for a different nodal point. Each regionwill have one or more dominant nodes and it will be interesting to find andrecord as to which interior areas form the areas of influence of one or the othernode. Nodal regions provide an understanding of the functional relationshipbetween settlements, which fill up the space. These heterogeneous units inrural and urban areas are functionally related because each settlement cannothave all the functions and facilities. All functions require a particularthreshold population and other facilities (Each settlement cannot have acollege or unless there is electricity, there cannot be cinema hall or a bankbranch).
3) Planning Regions
Planningregions depend upon the type of multi-level planning in the country. A verysmall country will naturally have one level planning. A planning region in amulti-level setup requires regional plan, which is a spatial plan for thesystematic location of functions and facilities in relation to humansettlements so that people may use them to their maximum advantages. In factmore important than reducing the regional disparities is the task of ensuringthat backward region and rural areas have basic minimum needs. Planning regionfor different activities can be different and a regional plan will belocational in character for that activity/function.
Forcomprehensive planning, there has to be a national plan and then a state planand finally district/block plans. Since a planning region is a sub nationalarea demarcated for the purpose of translating national objectives intoregional programs and policies, and since plan formulation and implementationneed administrative machinery, administrative regions are generally accepted asplanning regions.
Thehierarchy of planning region would be (i) national level (ii) macro level (iii)state level (iv) meso level (v) and micro level. A planning region must belarge enough to take investment decisions of an economic size, must be able toapply its own industry with the necessary labor, should have a hom*ogeneouseconomic structure, contain at least one growth point and have a commonapproach to and awareness of its problems. In short, a planning region shouldbe defined according to the purpose of one’s analysis. Ideally a planningregion should have adequate resources to establish a satisfactory pattern ofsavings, capital formation, investment, production, employment, incomegeneration and consumption pattern. It means that the area should beeconomically viable.
Types of Regions inMulti-Level Planning Perspective
1) Macro Region
Macroregion is naturally bigger. Macro region can be a state of even a group ofstates, if the states of a country are not big enough. For example, in Indiathere are East, West, North, South and Central Zones and ‘Zonal Councils’ ofwhich function is mutual consultation, developing cooperation and mutualcounseling. In a sense macro regions are second in hierarchy, next to thenational level. It is also possible that a physical macro region may compriseparts of different states of a country for project planning purposes (e.g. bigriver valley projects, an electric grid of different states and for the purposeof a particular activity planning).
Stateboundaries are not respected in the sense that the macro region may transcendor cut across administrative boundaries of the states of a country. A macroregion may not be uniform or hom*ogeneous in all respects. It may havehom*ogeneity in one respect (physical complementarity) and may haveheterogeneity in other respect (administrative boundaries). A macro regionshould have a common resource base and specialization in that resource base, sothat production activities can develop on the principle of comparativeadvantage based on territorial division of labor (India has been divided into11 to 20 macro regions, agro-climate or resource regions). The planningCommission of India would have just 5 zonal councils-Eastern, Northern,Central, Western and Southern comprising of certain states but beyond thisthere is no macro-regionalization in India. These so-called macro regions ofIndia have to have interstate cooperation in the matter of utilization of riverwater and electricity grids etc.
2) Meso Region
Mesoregion can be identified with a ‘division’ of a state. Chattisgarh region,Bundelkhand region, Baghelkahand region, Mahakoshal region is usually asub-division of a state, comprising of several districts. There should be someidentifiable affinity in the area which may even facilitate planning. It can becultural or administrative region and it will be even better if it is ahom*ogeneous physical region (resource) region. A meso region can also become anodal region provided the combined micro regions or parts thereof can bedeveloped in a complementary manner.
3) Micro Region
Inmulti-level planning, district is the micro region. It becomes the lowestterritorial unit of planning in the hierarchy of planning regions. The mostimportant reason why district is the most viable micro region for planning isthe existence of database and compact administration. This is the area, whichis viable for plan formulation with administration for plan implementation andmonitoring. A metropolitan area can be one micro region and the area ofinfluence can be another micro region. A nodal point is also a micro region,though in many cases micro regions are basically rural areas, which may have anumber of minor nodes without any organizational hierarchy influencing theentire area. The basic characteristic of a micro region is its smallness.
4) Micro – Minor Region
Thisis the region which is associated with, what is called, the grass-rootplanning. A micro-minor region can be a block for which also data exists nowand for which there may be a plan. The block level plan is integrated with thenational plan, through the district and state level plans. A block level planis not surgically cut portion of the district plan, which has its own logic andlinkage. At block level, most of the officers will be more concerned with theimplementation of the plans than formulating the plans. At block level, themain exercise will be to take into account of the physical and human resourcesand to find out the prime moving activities which will enable the block peopleto make best use of the development potential of the block to meet the basicneeds of the people.
Minimumneeds can be satisfied with the production of basic goods with the help of lowentropy local resources. In fact, planning of the development of the transport,communication, banking, education, medical and many service facilities has gotto be done at the national level. At the panchayat level, basic goods andservices can be arranged through the efforts of the local people. Manyactivities can be so planned that they improve the socio-economic conditions ofthe people without being the part of the national plan.
Severalactivities can be undertaken with the cooperation of the local people, withminimum of financial and real resource support from outside e.g., developmentof dairying, animal husbandry, pisciculture, poultry, soil conservationmeasures, optimization of the cropping pattern, productionof inputs locally, improving the storage and transport facilities can be doneat the micro minor level. Many agro based industries and tiny sector guild-typeactivities can be developed at the micro-minor level. A good planning cansecure ‘ruralization of the industries’ instead of ‘industrialization of ruralarea’. This will involve production of goods ‘by the masses for the masses andnear the masses’.
