Comparative Studies of Regional Planning Models - With Special Emphasis on a Case-Study of Southwestern Skane

Since 1979, the Regional Development Task at IIASA is engaged in a case study of economic and demographic development, land-use and related problems in the region of southwestern Skane in Sweden. The case study is the third in a series of attempts made by the Regional Development Task to apply systems analytic methods to regional planning problems in regions with different economic structures, resource endowments and organizational settings. The research in the Swedish case study is done in collaboration with the Southwest Skane Municipal Board, as a part of their ongoing work in physical and public transport planning for the metropolitan region of Malmo, and its neighboring municipalities. The research is partly sponsored by the Swedish Council for Building Research. In the case study an integrated systems analytic package of models is used which has been developed within the Regional Development Task in cooperation with a group of Swedish researchers and planners. In that package, separate models have been developed for interregional economic and demographic problems, and for intraregional land-use problems. The current paper sets the Swedish case study in relation to the three other case studies in the Regional Development Task. It is a first attempt to make a comparison of the variants of regional systems analysis adopted by the Task under different demo-economic and institutional settings. It should be followed by more careful comparative judgements in the future

The Regional Development Consequences of Close-Down of Nuclear Power Plants in Sweden

Energy planning is one of the most important elements of contemporary long-term planning. The central role of the energy sector in economic development has been stressed by many researchers and policy-makers. The discussion in many countries of policies for introducing at a larger scale renewable energy resources into their energy systems has a clear regional connotation. In spite of this fact most economic energy studies lack the regional dimension. There are several reasons for introducing regional elements in an energy analysis in a country as Sweden. Renewable energy resources are located in sparsely populated areas. The energy-dependent parts of the economy are concentrated geographically. The climatic conditions make the heating of buildings differentially costly in different parts of the country. The current paper gives an example of regional impact studies of national energy scenarios. It relates to the investigations in Sweden of the effects on the economic, regional, environmental, and social development of dispensing with nuclear power. The work of a subgroup in a Government Commission preparing for a nuclear referendum in 1980 is described, especially as regards the methods and models used for the regional analyses

Some Salient Issues in Policy Evaluations of Urban Housing Markets

Housing problems are truly universal. For households the residential choice decision is basic both in view of its influence on their welfare and the substantial portion of their budget it claims. For regions and nations, housing determines centrally the investment sacrifices and has strong influences on the financial markets. These significances of housing problems have entailed a whole range of laws, regulations, and policies to afflict the functioning of the markets both from quantity and distributional aspects. Different nations and regions have developed different arsenals of policy tools. Some attempts have been made to review and compare the national housing policies and the methods used in policy assessment. Such comparative studies are less common at the regional level. The current Working Paper addresses the contemporary issues of policy evaluations of the working of urban housing markets by suggesting a conceptual framework for such analyses, based on systems analytic considerations. The paper contains a claim for the development of a new generation of housing market models for policy evaluations based on modern theories of probabilistic choice and structural change in dynamic systems. It provides an agenda for an international research project on urban housing policies at a time when management and renewal have replaced expansion as traits of urban fabric

Regional Development Modeling: Theory and Practice

This volume contains a collection of papers presented at IIASA's conference on "Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Regional Development Modelling". Of the 50 papers presented , 26 were selected for publication, in such a way as to strike a balance between theory and application of regional systems analysis. The book is divided into seven parts. After an introduction, the second and third parts contain overviews of current modelling practice and planned economies. In the next two parts, the focus shifts to the theoretical problems encountered in structural and multi-objective analysis of regional systems. The final two sections contain examples of regional development models currently ready for use or in operation and analyze the success of these models in clarifying regional planning and policy problems

Regional Demographic Development in Southwest Skane

This Collaborative Paper deals with the population development of Southwest Skane and the rest of Sweden from the 1960s up until the turn of the century. A new type of projection model, developed at IIASA, is hereby used. This population model is one in the set mentioned above and has previously been tested on limited data from Sweden and other countries (see Andersson and Holmberg: Migration and Settlement. 3: Sweden, RR-80-5, IIASA) . The current application is more extensive. Ingvar Holmberg of the Demographic Research Group at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, is responsible for the adaptation of the model to Swedish conditions and for the numerical computations. The results have been evaluated by Ake Andersson, Ingvar Holmberg, Joergen Schultz, and Folke Snickars, all of whom have contributed to this policy-oriented report. Hopefully this work will further stimulate the continued discussion about regional population development in Sweden and elsewhere

Multiregional Economic Modeling: Practice and Prospect

This volume is the result of a particularly effective research collaboration between IIASA and the Department of Regional Economics at the Free University of Amsterdam. The objective was to provide a survey of current practice in the field of multiregional economic modelling and to review its major development trends. As part of the study 50 different models were reviewed and classified, based on a questionnaire circulated to almost 100 researchers or research institutions active in the field. Thus, the project has brought together existing expertise in the area, using IIASA as a "clearing-house" for theories, models and application experience, stemming from many different countries, planning systems and modelling traditions. This book will prove useful both as a source of reference and guide to current applied multiregional economic models, and as a work of structured analysis of the field