Sustainable Urban Planning

Socio-cultural further and further

Biological elaborated and layered

Enviro-physical

out into subcategories

This bio-regional approach, attributed originally to Patrick Geddes as the Valley

Section, works well for physical analyses (the sieve technique for pragmatic

problem-solving) but presents difficulties when the posited task is the develop-

ment of potential.

The comprehensive approach, vindicated by exponentional improvements in

computer storage and retrieval, makes it appropriate to catalogue all manner of

information of the kinds shown in box 4.3 Pattern data: a dump listing. It is

important in relation to such a smorgasbord to caution against time-wasting and

mechanical data assembly, particularly for project planning where the data needs

are specific. In relation to generalized development and conservation it is neces-

sary that data is held in an accessible retrieval system where it can be updated

and cross-referenced, rather than being filed away as a paper record. In localities

of previous data shortage the planning operative welcomes the elaboration of a

data library containing all the information available, including ‘weak’ and

126 Practice

Box 4.2 Export and residentiary considerations relative to an agricultural region

Consider three familiar agricultural products, apples,
potatoes and oranges – relative to a subject agricultural
region, ‘our’ region of concern. Assume that the apples
are highest grade and an excellent out-of-country export.
The potatoes are categorized as high grade by other
regions within the nation and from within our region.The
oranges grown within our region are of poor quality and
not acceptable in any other region.
Every ‘apple dollar’ earned from sales made beyond the
nation is an ‘export dollar’ earned for the nation; and if
it is reinvested in our region of concern it is a ‘new dollar’
from beyond, now embodied into the regional economy.
This ‘dollar’ largely did not exist previously within our
region. The stricture given out here is to maximize apple
production for export on account of the value-added gain
this brings both to the nation and our region of concern.
Every dollar’s worth of potatoes sold on to consumers
within the region takes a residentiary dollar out of one
local individual’s pocketbook and transfers it across to
another individual’s pocketbook. Even better for our
region is the sale of as much of the potato crop to con-
sumers in other regions within the national economy.
Above all it is important to avoid importing from another
region (or worse, from overseas), for both these actions
result in a net-loss transfer payment out of the region.

The regional best-practice stricture is, sell as much

local production as possible to the rest-of-nation market,

withal making sure that local needs are met. Do not

import from abroad. In the absence of a foreign export

market for potatoes, view all the other within-nation

regions as our offloader market, creating ex-regional

income, pulled in across our regional boundary.

Every dollar paid out for imported oranges hurts our

region and our nation. Our region’s inferior oranges are

locally available, and it is known that through plant

selection, ripening in storage, and emphatic marketing

that local consumers can be coerced into purchasing

this product to the exclusion of imported product. This

‘import substitution’ is in opposition to the tenets of

trade liberalization: so we have to ‘dress up’ orange

production as a locally preferred product, when in reality

it represents ‘import displacement’.

Standing naked with a fine agricultural export product

in the world market does not automatically catapult a

region into prosperity. In order to prosper, the region

described above should produce all the ‘apples’ it can for

export; produce ‘potatoes’ for itself and the rest of the

nation; and produce those low-grade oranges for within-

region sale and purchase. In these terms our notional

agri-region’s horticultural sector will prosper.