Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
emotional attachment to particular areas or regions, which have been their homes
for a long time, their childhood lands, or perhaps even the lands of their
forebears. Maintenance of the physical environment in its traditional form,
avoidance of any destruction, and concern for the wellbeing of the residents of
these local areas, are components of the territoriality that is found not only in the
LDCS but also widely in developed countries, where the fierce defence of
landscape relates to the same feelings. Most Western countries have agencies to
conserve or preserve elements of both the built and the natural landscape, with
strong support from people concerned for the visible symbols of historical
identity.
Ways towards separate regional development
How can a locally based development be planned and executed? John Friedmann's
1970s ideas, and in Europe, those of Walter Stöhr, set in motion a variety of
critiques of the standard top-down style of development, and a variety of other
related approaches sought to identify how separate development styles could be
engendered by moving away from the top-down direction. The search for ways of
promoting and organizing local or regional development from the grassroots
gave rise to a flourishing literature on aspects of “Development from Below”,
summarized in the topic edited by Stöhr & Taylor (1981). One version of it had
emerged from the International Labour Organization and the United Nations, and
concerned the supply of basic needs. If regional development could be directed
simply at the supply of housing, clothing, food and basic services for the poorest
groups in each region, then a new style of development would have been created.
This was regarded as Development from Below presumably because locally
based development could be expected to attend to local requirements first. This
approach was full of the best intentions, but was agnostic as to the key matter of
how it might be achieved. Like the other versions now mentioned, the concern
was for policy, which was then presented as a kind of theory.
Another version was agropolitan development, as espoused by Friedmann and
others for the East Asia area (Lo & Salih 1981). This concept was expressed as a
series of desiderata: development should involve the local community at all
levels and all points in the planning process; products of the region should be, as
much as possible, from resources of the region itself, using the regional
technology and other human resources; production should be for the local
market; all barriers to production, such as the unequal division of the land,
should be resolved by agrarian reform. Again it may be seen that the aims are
laudable, but the mechanism for action difficult to define. There was a specific
spatial structure for agropolitan development—the regions were designated as
having up to 150,000 people in them, with a central city having an initial
population of between 10,000 and 25,000. These dimensions would ensure that a
true democracy would reign, since the small size of the region would allow all its
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