An Appraisal of Growth Center Theory in Relation to Information Needs

Abstract

During the last two decades, growth center theory has gained a wide range of popularity. One of the reasons for this is that growth center policy has been regarded as an intermediate solution between extreme concentration and extreme deconcentration. As illustrated in Figure 1, growth pole has become increasingly an umbrella term, attracting a large number or more specific theories which are related to the problems of regional development. In some countries, it has acquired the status of a partial, if not a general, theory of spatial development strategy. Recently theorists hoped to include the diffusion process, and in a broad sense, social change as concomitant to economic growth. But the mixture of such untested (or untestable) theories has exposed a Janus-faced situation. Simultaneously, the confusion of concepts and semantics has arisen from the results of the theorists who took into consideration the econom!c, social, and geographical dimensions or regional development. As Hermansen puts it, the concepts of growth pole have lost much of. 'their original content and meaning and thereby have become more elusive and ill-suited for empirical testing and practical application on a specific basis. (1) The difficulties of acquiring needed data aggrevated by these problems make growth center theory more a policy framework rather than a practical planning device.