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[Paper first received, July 1997; in final form, January 19991
Summary. The paper undertakes a detailed examination of growth-pole strategies, an emphasis in regional economic planning during the 1960s which never lived up to its early promise. The initial concern is with the origins of the strategy, particularly the manner in which the work of Perroux (on dominance and economic space) became modified to form a normative concept in regional economic planning. Consideration is given to the various regional-problem settings in which the growth-pole strategy has been advocated. These settings reflected such policy concerns as depressed-area revival, the encouragement of regional deconcentration, the modification of a national urban system, the pursuit of interregional balance, etc. Attention then turns to the fundamental nature and underlying rationale of the strategy. The paper is continued in Part 2 which appears in the next issue of the journal.
1. Introduction
One of the more intriguing aspects of the analysis and practice of regional economic planning over the past several decades has been the changing attitude towards the growth-pole strategy. This strategy or family of strategies has been proposed in a variety of settings, and is therefore not easily generalised. Certain common features can be identified, however. The growth-pole strategy typically involves the focusing of investment at a limited number of locations (usually as part of a deliberate effort to modify regional spatial structure), in an attempt to encourage economic activity and thereby raise levels of welfare within a region. By the mid 1960s, the growth-pole strategy had emerged as the object of considerable fascination and enthusiasm, and was viewed as "an idea in good currency", to use the borrowed phrase of Lasu6n (1969, p. 137). Indeed, a newcomer to the field at that time could have been excused for thinking that no matter what the nature of the regional problem, it would be most effectively overcome by the adoption of a growth-pole strategy. Doubters subsequently emerged, including Gilbert (1974) and Moseley (1973), but they were few in number and their warnings went largely unheeded; such was the spirit of the times. Large areas within the field of regional economic planning came to be recast in terms of the growth-pole strategy. Commenting later on this trend, Kuklinski (1978,...