History of Regional Science and the Regional Science Association International : The Beginnings and Early History

The book portrays how a new unique social science field of study evolved and describes the formation of a society associated with the field. It starts with the rise of Hitler, the advent of the Keynesian Revolution, the intense mathematization of economics and relates how an individual's creative thinking, later supplemented by that of others, was able to effectively combat the strong resistance of conventional social sciences-economics and geography in particular to attain full scale recognition as a basic social science area covering the sorely neglected theoretical and related applied analysis of spatial, locational and regional phenomena. The book depicts the first stage of development in North America, then because of demonstrated applied findings on problems where only theory and just talk existed in economics and geography, spread rapidly into Europe, then Japan, India, Australia, South Korea and Latin America, and recently into Indonesia and China and elsewhere. It has become today, in the mind of the founder and author, to be among the leading areas of study (if not the leading one) in attacking the globalization problems -economic, political and cultural- of the world economy and its major regions. It is difficult, if not impossible, to establish the point of time at which a new field of study starts to emerge. While the date of formal organization of a society asso­ ciated with the field can be precisely stated, such timing says little about when and where the seeds for a field's development were planted. Also, such timing says little about the essential "why" for the development of a field and provides little understanding of the path that it traced. It is clear that the emergence of the field of regional science, like many other fields, was dependent on a particular setting as well as the pattern of events and interaction of diverse personalities who became involved. As best I can, I shall attempt in this Part I of the History to unravel the where, when and why questions in the development of Regional Science and the Regional Science Association International. Further, in the last section of this essay, I shall briefly point up some potentialities for analytical advances in the field of regional science. Also, I shall note the opportunity for leadership by regional scientists in attacking global and regional development problems, thereby to help formulate relevant policy. In this way, I hope to expose the potential for fruitful research by young scholars interested in entering the field. Front Matter....Pages I-X The Setting and Initial Events....Pages 1-6 The Emergence and Struggling Years of Regional Science....Pages 7-70 The Evolution of the Designations: Regional Science, Regional Science Association and the Field of Regional Science....Pages 71-72 The Formation of the Regional Science Association....Pages 73-112 The Rooting and Emergence of Regional Science as a Major Field of Study....Pages 113-131 The Invasion of and Extensive Expansion in Europe Concomitant with the Formation of Sections....Pages 133-151 The Spread of Regional Science into Japan, India, and Latin America....Pages 153-185 My Current Thinking on the Scope and Nature of Regional Science and Opportunities for Its Advance in Basic Research and Policy Analyses....Pages 187-193 Back Matter....Pages 195-274