AR 443A PLANNING 3: Introduction to Urban and Regional Planning

Midterm Handouts

Growth Pole and Other Urban Economic Theories

The growth pole concept originated from British Economist, Sir William Petty (1623-1687), who was fascinated by the
high growth in London during the 17th century and conjectured that strong urban economies are the backbone and
motor of the wealth of nations.

Growth Poles sometimes referred to as growth centers.

French Economist, Francois Perroux, who is credited with formalizing and elaborating on the concept in 1949. He then
called as the Father of Growth Pole Theory.

The core idea of the growth poles theory is that economic development, or growth, is not uniform across an entire
region, but instead takes place around a specific pole. The pole is a concentration of productive activity and propagates
growth by the diffusion of growth and spill over effects into the surrounding hinterland.

Growth poles were a popular regional development strategy in the 1960s and early 1970s, with governments investing in
centers that were identified as growth poles or growth centers, in a belief that this would ultimately reduce regional
disparities in employment and incomes, facilitate decentralization, or support rapid industrialization.

Attempts by governments to pick winners and losers and to identify and invest in growth poles have a very poor record
of success. Consequently, this approach to regional development has been discredited and generally abandoned
throughout the world. Parr (2001, p. 17) referred to the spectacular failure of growth pole strategies.

Growth pole theory, as originally formulated, assumes that growth does not appear everywhere at the same time, but it
manifests itself in points or poles of growth.

Darwent (1979) Perrouxs work created deep and serious confusion, partly because of the ambiguity of Perrouxs initial
formulation, partly because of mistranslation from French to English and vice versa, and partly because of the semantic
confusion of later authors. The original concept of a growth pole was actually independent of a spatial context or a
geonomic (or geographic) space. Rather, growth pole relates only and specifically to abstract economic space. He,
then, defines growth poles as:
.centers (poles or focii) from which centrifugal forces emanate and to which centripetal forces are attracted. Each
center being a center of attraction and repulsion has its proper field which is set in the field of all other centers.

From the Geography Dictionary (2004) defines growth poles as follows:

A point of economic growth. Growth poles are usually urban locations, benefiting from agglomeration economies, and
should interact with surrounding areas, spreading prosperity from the core to the periphery.

Davin, associated a functional attribute to the concept. They postulated that a growth pole is formed when an industry,
through the flow of goods and incomes which it is able to generate, stimulates the development and growth of other
industries related to it (technical polarization); or determines the prosperity of the tertiary sector by means of the
incomes it generates (income polarization); or stimulates an increase of the regional economy by causing a progressive
concentration of new activities (psychological and geographical polarization).

Growth pole concept was originally conceived within economic space, but later transposed into geographical space.
By conceptualizing growth pole in spatial terms, economists sought for a link between growth pole theory and urban
accumulation and concentration (Monsted, 1974; Parr, 1999; Bertenelli and Strobl, 2003). The assumption was that cities
with their accumulation and concentration of population and capital resources (agglomeration economies) - could
become growth poles. That being the case, Penouli (1972) and Friedman (1966) have treated growth poles as centers
from which innovations and progress are diffused.

Arch. Dennis C. de Villa

November 5, 2013
TIP. 443A PLANNING 3. HANDOUTS. PRELIMS. WEEK 1. 11/11/2013

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