Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
13
Toward a Public Policy Agenda for Regional
Science: Planning Versus Measuring
Impacts
Peter D. Blair
Abstract
Much of Walter Isard's lifelong devotion to advancing the emerging disciplines
of regional science and peace science focused on a better understanding of the
forces shaping the social and economic development of geographic regions and
the role that analysis can play formulating public policy. This paper explores
generally the use of regional science tools applied to public policy questions in
two fundamentally different ways: (1) to fashion steps directed at the most
desirable outcome, however desirable is defined—an explicit
planning objective
or (2) to articulate the consequences of possible alternative courses of action—a
perhaps more modest
impact analysis objective
. The paper illustrates the
circumstances suggesting one approach versus the other with an example
involving the use of optimization tools and input-output analysis.
13.1
Introduction
Walter Isard dedicated much of his life to advancing the emerging disciplines of
regional science and peace science, which both focused on a better understanding of
the forces shaping the social and economic development of geographic regions. He
also was deeply interested in the role that analysis can play in understanding and
peacefully resolving human conflict, perhaps especially social conflict. Inherently
