Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science

In an attempt to show how technology impacts politics as well as economics, some political implications of ‘appropriate technology’ for developing nations are examined. Contradictions appear in considering issues of dependency and exploitation, because the use of advanced technologies implies one kind of dependency, whereas the absence of these technologies widens the gap between nations and may foster a different dependency. Similarly, the current emphasis on ‘basic needs’ tends to suggest that computers are irrelevant, but managerial and future-oriented prospects may contradict this. Mainframes and microcomputers will both continue to decline in cost and will be more user friendly. Their employment in developing countries will have powerful organisational and cultural impacts, which may help to neutralise threats of starvation, ignorance, and population explosion. There is no self-evident technology by which the Third World can advance as rapidly as is needed without computers. Computer use, as opposed to parts of computer manufacture, will be labor intensive and will thus meet an important investment criterion for development.

There are two approaches to the development of a mapping and planning software system for use in the regional planning offices of the developing countries: (1) a turnkey system approach which uses a single integrated package for data entry, file management, analysis, and graphics; and (2) the linked system approach which uses a loosely integrated framework built around existing data-base and graphics packages. The paper gives a progress report on a project first developed for decentralized regional planning in Asia that uses the linked systems approach by combining commonly available packages in data-base management and computer-aided design (CAD) through a set of linker programs. An exercise in map overlay analysis is described which uses land-use patterns in southern Sri Lanka. The principal reason for adopting this approach is the logic of appropriate technology. It uses the informal infrastructure that already exists in the Asian cities in the use of computer software to develop planning tools that can be locally supported and extended by the users.

The process is described of designing a computerized development control administration system for the Town and Country Development Planning Office (TCDPO) in the island of Barbados. The first phase of the study involved an analysis of the process of development control administration and concluded that the bottlenecks in the system which is processing over 3000 applications each year, could not be reduced by using any extension of manual methods. The functions identified for computerization included generating forms and letters, creating registers, updating and tracking the status of applications, scheduling site visits, and formatting reports. Proposals for automating these functions were also constrained by the need to preserve the present process of development control, the need to continue to employ existing staff, and the need to purchase any hardware and software locally. Tenders have already been let for the system and it will be operational by early 1990.

Zoning with binding regulations has only rarely been offered as a solution to problems of uncertainty and delay in the British planning system. Nevertheless there is merit in examining the French control system which appears in principle to be dedicated to the reduction of uncertainty both in timing and decision. Within the context of a general discussion of the merits of zoning and legalised policy the findings of case study research in the Lyon conurbation and an analysis of national development control statistics are presented. It is concluded that a legalised system of zoning does not reduce uncertainty and is often an inappropriate way of expressing policy, and that delay in the formal processing period, in negotiations before an application is lodged and in the prefect's duty to check decisions after they had been taken, is commonplace.

Color grammars that generate designs made up of lines and/or colors are introduced.

One of the major—but least reported—changes in British academic life in the last decade has probably been the reorientation of links with practice. For many disciplines practical links that were previously dominated by the public sector have been replaced by increasingly strong links with the private sector. The reasons for this are considered in this paper. After defining the academic — practice interface, the author looks at the policy context that academics must appreciate if they are to carry out genuine applied work. The peculiar features of applied work at the public-sector and private-sector interfaces are examined. To illustrate these features the interface in four sectors—retailing and marketing, rating places, geographic information systems, and local economic development—are reviewed. The paper concludes with reflections on the nature and consequences of changes at the academic — practice interface. A typology of motivations for applied work is presented: altruistic, analytical, and adversarial. These are considered on ideological, moral, and technical grounds. These issues generate very little comment in the academic press. The new ‘Applications’ section of Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design provides a forum for such reflection.

In region building, different models of cluster analysis conform to different theoretical spatial structures. The p-median model may be quite appropriate in nodal structures. Use of the p-median model, however, raises problems about the choice of the number of groups (p). This choice does not arise in facility location problems. An argument is made for parallel use of optimal methods and heuristics for region building. Optimal solutions are now feasible for even large problems because of the increase in computer power. Optimal methods provide one solution for each different value of p. Heuristic methods may provide different solutions for each value of p, depending on the starting position used for the heuristic. The multiple solutions from a heuristic procedure can then be interpreted as spatial competition between locations to become medians. By counting the number of times optimal and nonoptimal solutions are located by a heuristic procedure, statistics can be developed. Such statistics can then provide an objective method to select a specific number of groups over all others. Computational experience, with both heuristic and optimal methods, is presented.