Question : Write a note on the parameters used to describe the demographic transitions in the developing countries like India.
(2007)
Answer : Demographic transition occurs in societies that transition from high birth rates and high death rates to low birth rates and low death rates as part of the economic development of a country from a pre-industrial to an industrialized economy. Usually it is described through the “Demographic Transition Model” (DTM) that describes the population changes over time.
There have been many theories to understand the complex mechanism of population growth over a long period of time. Out of these, the theory of Demographic transition is certainly leaps ahead of other theories.
This theory, originally, was given by Thompson and Notestien. This is based on the theory of demographic regulation which asserts that man is able to foresee demographic catastrophe before it arrives and is able to take adaptive actions long before the nature forces the same upon him.
The transition involves four stages, or possibly five:
In stage one, pre-industrial society, death rates and birth rates are high and roughly in balance.
In stage two, that of a developing country, the death rates drop rapidly due to improvements in food supply and sanitation, which increases life spans and reduces disease. These changes usually come about due to improvements in farming techniques, access to technology, basic healthcare and education. Without a corresponding fall in birth rates this produces an imbalance and the countries in this stage experience a large increase in population.
In stage three, birth rates fall due to access to contraception, increase in wages, urbanization, a reduction in subsistence agriculture, an increase in the status and education of women, a reduction in the value of children’s work, an increase in parental investment in the education of children and other social changes. Population growth begins to level off.
During stage four there are both low birth rates and low death rates. Birth rates may drop to well below replacement level as has happened in countries like Germany, Italy and Japan, leading to a shrinking population and is a threat to many industries that rely on population growth. The large group born during stage two creates an economic burden on the shrinking working population. Death rates may remain consistently low or increase slightly due to increases in lifestyle diseases due to low exercise levels and high obesity and an aging population in developed countries.
Most developed countries are already in stage four of the model. The majority of developing countries are in stage 2 or stage 3 and no country is currently still in stage 1. The model has explained human population evolution relatively well in Europe and other highly developed countries. Many developing countries have moved into stage 3. The major exceptions are poor countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa and some Middle Eastern countries, which are poor or affected by government policy or civil strife, notably Pakistan, Palestine, Yemen and Afghanistan.
There are three main parameters that are used for demographic transition viz. (i) the Birth Rate, (ii) the Death Rate, (iii) the Growth Rate.
Birth Rate: The Birth rate reflects the total number of live births over 1000 population. The quality of Birth rate primarily determine the growth rate and hence Demographic transition. In countries like India, the Birth rate is primarily responsible for the exploding population. The main fault is that despite all measures to curb the population, it cannot be brought down as the population base expands over the years due to high birth rate. Infact, this young and expanding population base is the main reason for higher growth rate in developing countries like India. It is estimated that almost 70% of live births are attributed to this population base alone.
Factors Affecting Birth Rate: Pro-natalist policies and antinatalist policies from government, abortion rates, existing age-sex structure, social and religious beliefs - especially in relation to contraception, female literacy levels, economic prosperity, poverty levels, children can be seen as an economic resource in developing countries as they can earn money, infant mortality rate, urbanization and typical age of marriage.
Death Rate: The second parameter of demographic transition is Death Rate. It has inverse relationship with standard of life in any country. The Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) and Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) are chief components of Death rate.
In theory, in stage I, the population remains stationary because Death rate almost equals the birth rate. The Death rate remains high because of poverty, starvation, epidemics, very poor medical facilities and others. But in second stage, Death rate declines considerably due to development in medical sciences. Again, this becomes a root cause of expanding population as Birth rate remains the same.
Factors Affecting a Country’s Death Rate: Age of country’s population, nutrition levels, standards of diet and housing, access to clean drinking water, hygiene levels, levels of infectious diseases, levels of violent crime, conflicts and number of doctors.
Growth Rate: The last and most important parameter of population/demographic transition is Growth Rate. This is the difference between birth rate and death rate. If both birth and death rates are high, then growth rate remains low and if any of them decreases then it affect the growth rate simultaneously.
To sum up, all these parameters are essentially correlated to each other. The countries like India are getting it hard to come out of stage-II of demographic transition as the birth rate continues to remain high. This is called the Demographic trap. Therefore, the theory of demographic transition continues to throw light on the population growth pattern.Question : What is the concept of a region? Discuss the types of region.
(2006)
Answer : For a geographer a region consists of contiguous or non-contigious spatial units which are similar to each other in terms of one or more chosen criteria. The concept of region dates back to the nineteenth century when Vidal de la Blache emphasised the significance of studying small homogeneous areas called ‘pays’ in France.
Though claims have been made that the unity of pays was destroyed by the Industrial Revolution, a renewed recognition of the purpoted character of region building was made by Hettner, Whittlesey, Hartshorne etc. According to Hettner, geography is a study of regions which includes knowledge of the areas of the earth as they differ from each other.
Whiltlesey has defined a region as a ‘differentiated segment of earth space’. In Hartshornes’s opinion, regions are descriptive tools, defined according to a particular criterion for a particular purpose so that there are as many regions as there are criteria to define them, such as climatic regions, agricultural regions, industrial regions etc. According to him the basic objective of discipline of geography is to provide accurate, orderly and rational description and interpretation of thevariable character of the earth.
Though Hettner hadmade it clear that ‘there is no universally valid regional division which does justice to all phenomena, the consequences of such a statement became clear only when Grigg argued that regionalisation was similar to classification and any particular
regional system was only one way oflooking at the world. Some of the modern radical geographers who have departed fromtraditional region building by looking at geography as a spatial science, also regarded the region as one of the most logical ways of organising geographical information. Such radical geographers include Haggett, Cliff and Frey.
Many of the early studies in regional geography have been concerned with ‘formal’ regions which were identified on the basis of the presence or absence of particular distinguishing features. Dickinson argued that an analysis of the character, intensity, extent and interrelation of regional associations as well as the ways in which they were interlocked and separated from each other in space was important for understanding regional differences.
Thus emerged the concept of functional regions which consists of spatial units tied to a nodal centre through the medium of transport and communication routes. In this case these spatial units are similar to each other in terms of connection with the same nodal centre either for the provision of goods and services, or for marketing of their labour or commodities.
Attributes of Regions
Types of Region: The concept of region as a method of classification has evolved through two distinct phases reflecting the economic advancement from a simple agrarian economy to a complex industrial system. Regions have been classified in different ways.
The first phase was dominated by the concept of formal region defined according to homogeneity, while the second phase saw the development of functional region defined on the basis of functional coherence.
Formal region: A formal region is a geographical area which is uniform or homogeneous in terms of selected criteria. In the earlier definitions of formal regions, the criteria were mostly physical like topography, climate, natural vegetation. Such regions may be referred to as natural regions as they exist naturally on the geographical space. Interest in this form of regionalisation was partly due to the fact that physical factors are more stable than dynamic economic factors and partly from the influence of Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Following Darwin’s concept of natural selection, geographers believedthat the survival of man depended on his adaptation to his environment so that human environment could best be understood by isolating and studying the physical environment.
Later there was a shift to the use of economic criteria and social and political criteria such as language, religion, tribal population, political allegiance etc. Economic formal regions were initially based on types of industry or agriculture, but the scope of economic regionalisation expanded to the use of other criteria like income level, rate of unemployment and rate of economic growth. An important change in the scheme of regionalisation was an increasing emphasis on multiple criteria regionalisation rather than single criterion regionalisation. This indicated the increasing awareness of the thinkers and planners about the complexity that exists in the human world and the needfor a logical categorisation of the complexity that exists over space. The world has been divided into a number of natural regions such as equatorial, temperate, tundra, desert, savannah regions etc. based on the climate, natural vegetation and location.
Functional Region: The Functional integration approach has led to the delineation of functional region which is a geographical area displaying a certain functional coherence, on the inter-dependence of part, when defined on the basis of certain criteria. The functional relationships are usually revealed in the form of flows, using socio-economic criteria like journeys to work, shopping trips, flow of perishable as well as non-perishable commodities, newspaper circulation, telephone, e-calls etc.
Hence, while homogeneous or formal regions are defined by considering the stable elements of the landscape, functional regionsare defined by taking into account dynamic elements in the form of flows of commodities, human beings, information and capital. The concept of functional region brings into focus the importance of different types of linkages or interconnections between places and areas for the functioning of those spatial units as human habitats.
Planning Regions: With increasing organisational complexity in the production, exchange and levels of development at the global as well as the national levels, development and regional planning have become imperative at different levels of human operation. In both the developed and developing countries, spatial differences exist in the distribution of natural resources and levels of economic development which may partly account for social differences as well. Such disparities become particularly accentuated in large countries or geopolitical units like India which have a long history of existence.
Question : In urban geography, what are the concepts of primate city and Rank Size Rule? Discuss in detail.
(2006)
Answer : A Primate city emerges when a city becomes larger than any other city in country’s initial stage of urban development and thus develops an impetus for self sustaining growth. It emerges as the centre of economic opportunity and attracts the most energetic individuals and active minds from other parts of the country. Usually it becomes an expression of the national identity of the state in relation to other states and for this reason tends to attract political functions and becomes the capital city. The law of the primate city was propounded by Mark Jefferson in 1939. This was based on the observation that country’s leading city is disproportionately larger than others.
Distribution: Primate cities are found almost in all the countries - developed or developing.
Factors affecting Primacy: Primacy is a product of small size of a country, short history of urbanisation, simple economic and political organisation, dual economy and export orientation of the economy.
Dual Economy: Strong outside forces may affect the primacy. Dualeconomies in Kenya, Nigeria, Indonesia and Thailand have been responsible for making Nairobi, Lagos, Jakarta, and Bangkok primate cities. Dual economy is an economy which appears to consist of two parts, each having distinctive history and dynamics. The dual urban economy has been given many names e.g. formal and informal sectors and more recently upper economic circuit and lower economic circuit.
Degree of Primacy: The degree calculated by index of primacy is the measure of relative importance in a nation or a region. Its primacy is established as
Index of Primacy = P1/P2
where P1 = Population of largest town; and
P2 = Population of second largest town.
When the second largest city has less than half the population of the largest city, the degree of level of primacy is said to be high and vice-versa. We can see higher ratios of rural to urban migration to the primate city than to the second largest city as well as initially higher fertility rates in primate cities.
Rank Size Rule: Implicit in urban geography studies is the assumption that there is some sort of order or logic underlying the size relationships and spatial distribution of towns. It is assumed that settlements do not grow in haphazard or random manner and that a measurable degree of order is found in their size and spacing. The Rank-Size Rule connotes that in any large region there are many small towns in addition to a smaller number of medium sized towns and relatively few large cities. This regularity is clearly demonstrated when relationship between city-rank and city-population size are examined.
The cities in any region may be ranked from largest to smallest according to their population size. The largest city is ranked No-1, the second largest No-2 countinuing in this way down to the lower ranking towns. It was first noticed by F. Auerbach in 1913 that when these rank numbers are plotted against their respective population, a regular relationship generally emerges. The rank-size rule, proposed by G.K Zipf in 1949, attempts to express this relationship in more precise mathematical terms and states that if all the urban settlements in an area are ranked in descending order of population, the population of the nth town will be 1/nththat of the largest town.
Rank-Size Rule-Base and Concept: Rank size rule is a theory of numerical distribution of settlement which recognises an empirical regularity whereby the product obtained by multiplying a city rank by its size is equal to a constant, the population of country’s, largest city such that for a given settlement system.
Pr =
Where Pr = Population of rth rank city.
Pi = Population of the largest city.
r = Rank of city.
The second ranking city of a country has one half of the population of the largestcity. The third ranking city, one third of largest and so on down scale. The relationship can be described in graphic form by plotting a city rank against its population.
If linear scales for the axes are used to show relationship, then a curve result. If the Logarithms of population and rank are plotted on this graph, a straight line will be produced.
Formula,
Log Pr = Log pi - Log r
This is useful for comparative purpose since by plotting a country’s city size distribution on double loagrithmic graphic paper, the degree to which the distribution confirms to the rank-size rule can be ascertained.
There have been many attempts to explain the rank-size regularity.
Primary Deviation: Primary Deviation means that the size of second largest city is less than half the size of the largest city where primacy emerges. This happens when there are few simple strongforces operating rather than many complex forces. This type of urban centre of a developing country is associated with emerging Capitals Kampala, Bogota, Windhock, Harare etc.
Binary Deviation: Means that the second largest city is more than half the size of the largest city. This is found where a number of settlements of similar size dominate:
Rank-size rule can be better used for comparativepurpose. It is more descriptive than explanatory.
Question : Sustainable development.
(2006)
Answer : Development is a process about improving the well-being of people and sustainable Development sustains this process. Sustainable Development aims at efficient utilisation of resources without depleting it irreversibly.
The concept of sustainable development is very broad which incorporates in its fold all the ingredients of public welfare. The general principle of sustainable development adopted by the World commission on Environment and Development is as follows: “Current generations should meet their needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” This principle has become widely accepted.
Thus sustainable development is a process of social and economic betterment that satisfies the needs and values of all interest groups without foreclosing future options. To this end, this approach calls to ensure that the demand on the environment from which we derive our sustenance does not exceed its carrying capacity for the present as well as future generations.
Nevertheless, there has been progressive pressure on the environment and the natural resources, the alarming consequences of which are becoming evident in increasing proportions. These consequences in the form of pollution, environmental degradation etc. are the result of lopsided emphasis on economic growth without due care to the environment. These consequences make the lives of people unhealthy to the extent of threatening their survival, thereby making the gains of development (economic), if any, redundant. Moreover, the most affected by these consequences are the poor ones who are in considerable proportion in the world.
The goals of development and environmental protection are not contradictory. It is not plausible to argue that all natural resources should be preserved. Development process will inevitably involve some amount of forest clearing, mining etc. However, it is suggested that natural capital should be preserved in some aggregate sense, with losses in one area replenished elsewhere.
Such is the need and importance of the concept of sustainable development that it has almost acquired a status of paradigm. It has become a yardstick to measure the efficacy of any developmental policy. It is aptly remarked that “the survival and well-being of a nation depends on sustainable development.”Question : Discuss various strategies for correcting regional imbalances.
(2004)
Answer : Real world is characterised by diversity and this diversity is produced by major environmental contrasts, the uneven distribution of natural resources, and regional differences in the history of human development. Economic development is thus not evenly spread within countries, because environmental factors and the operation of economic and social processes produce spatial concentration and specialisation. In consequence there are usually widely differing levels of economic and social well-being across the regions.
Faced with spatial differences in level of economic development, most people would agree that a government has a duty to intervene in the economic and social welfare of the state. Governments are developing regional policies to intervene directly in the space-economy for five main groups of resons:
(i) Social reasons
(ii) Political reasons
(iii) Economic reasons
(iv) Strategic reasons
(v) The need to coordinate sectoral planning
There is no single strategy that can be applied to all countries, but there are many national policies/strategies which have been developed under three main influences:
Despite these differences/influences, in every strategy, there is a need to encourage development or adjustment in underdeveloped areas or to control growth in favoured areas. One of the first task of regional strategy is to define areas of need.
Defining Areas of Need: This is not an easy task. However, low incomes, poor housing, unblanced industrial structures and restricted educational opportunities are some of the important considerations in this regard.
Regional Policy Measure: having identified those areas which need aid, there are basically three ways in which industry, for exampe, can be moved into them: by compulsion, by bribery, or by making developing areas so attractive that industrialist move spontaneously. The mixture varies from country to country depending on the economic-political system, but before action is taken, a decision has to be made whether to assist all areas of need or whether to concentrate only on tose with growth potential. Similarly, it must be decided whether or not to give indiscriminate aid to those regions chosen or whether to concentrate on points to maximum potential (growth poles). A basic problem is that it is not clear how regional economies work and therefore the costs and benefits of alternate policies are difficult to assess. As a result, regional policy formulation is not a precise science and accurate predictive models are difficult to develop. In such circumstances a wide range of policy measures have been tried, which can be grouped in three categories.
Regional Policy and Regional Planning: Much regional policy in the past has simply been depressed area policy aimed at alleviating the hardship produced by low incomes and unemployment. However, increasing attention is being given to regional development policies which include all regions, both weak and strong, and which are essentially national policies with a strong regional component aimed at overall social and economic growth.
Within such a regional policy there is a need for regional planning for regional policy is basically central government policy making for the regions, whereas regional planning concerns policy-making at the regional level. Thus, although growth pole policy might not be acceptable at national level because it neglect depressed regions, it could be applied withint regions to concentrate aid at points to maximum potential rather than spread it indiscriminately. Regional plans can be drawn up within the framework of a national plan to achieve coordination between economic and physical planning, but this is very difficult. In Britain, for example, the Economic Planning Regions established in 1964 simply overcies a very complex system of overlapping and uncoordinated functional and administrative regions, and this leads to many conflicts. However, the establishment of a comprehensive regional policy within an overall national plan is a very difficult task, as can be seen from an examination of over fifty years of regional policy in Britain.
Question : Examine the concept of sphere of urban influence and discuss the qualitative and quantitative methods used in its delimitation.
(2003)
Answer : A city is not an isolated feature on the urban landscape. It has intricate relationship with its surrounding area to operate as a unified functional region. A city influences its surrounding area and simultaneously it is affected by its surrounding region. Economy of the city influences the activities of the surrounding region to a great extend while many of the needs of the cities are fulfilled by the countrysides.
Thus, cities and their surroundings are interdependent and complementary to each other. However, the distance decay rule operates with regard to city’s influence over the surrounding region, i.e. the influence diminishes outward from the city. After a point, the city does not exercise a dominant influence on the region. Thus, the areal extent over which a city has a dominant influence is termed as ‘sphere of Urban influence’. It has been alternatively called Umland (first used by Andre Elix), City Region (by Dikinson & Harris), Urban Field (by Smailes), Hinterland, etc.
Delimitation of sphere of urban influence: Urban sphere of influence is a region of commanding influence of the city and hence its delimitation becomes a difficult task as what criteria should be taken to delimit the zone of commanding influence. It becomes more difficult in the context of constantly changing nature of interaction between city and its region. However, attempts have been made by many scholars in this regard which can be grouped under qualitative methods and quantitative methods.
Quantitative methods: These methods are based on the specialisation/characters and number of services provided by the city or town. The urban areas provide many services like trading, retailing, education, transportation, medical facilities, etc. The extent from which people are willing to travel to the city and the extent (distance) to which the city is providing some services is the boundary of the urban area of influence.
Several attempts based on qualitative methods have been made after the first world war. R.E. Dickinson in 1930, divided the relationship of cities to the surrounding region in four categories:
Dickinson delimited the urban spheres of Leeds and Bradford on the basis of wholesale trade, retail trade, accessibility and other criteria. C.D. Haris in 1940, endeavoured to delimit the Umland of Salt Lake City. He has taken 12 different services into consideration for delimiting the Umland of the cities of U.S. These are:
Attempts have been made to delimit the urban spheres of Indian cities also. Some important works are of Dr. R.L. Singh on Banaras, U. Singh on Allahabad, Dr. V.L.S. Prakasa Rao on the cities of Karnataka, R.S. Dixit’s work on Kanpur and so on. The given figure depicts the sphere of influence of Varanasi and Kanpur cities in which zone of influence of different services overlap:
What is required in the qualitative methods is the selection of those indicators which are appropriate to the level of specialisation and the hierarchial level of the city. For example, bus service area is an appropriate indicator for delimiting area of influence of cities with a population of one lakh or more. But where, there is pre-dominance of personal vehicles, this factor is not likely to yield good result. For an agricultural marketing centre, the indicator or function should focus on the catchment area of specific agricultural products for which the city region is known.
Quantitative methods: These methods are based on mathematical techniques. Some important methods/theories are:
(a) Gravity Model: The gravity model was proposed by Zipf to denote special interaction, i.e. the movement of people, goods and ideas between places within a transport system for a given period of time. It is an inductive method based on the Newton’s law of Gravitation—that attraction of a region is proportional to the product of their mass (population size) and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. It can be mathematically expressed as:
where, i and j are two centres
Tij = Interaction or flow between areas i and j
Pi & Pj = Population of the centres i and j
dij = Distance between i and j centres
G = Constant
b = Distance exponent
The model can be shown diagramatically by taking a hypothetical situation as:
Applying it to another situation where two towns i and l have a population of 1000 separated by a distance of 5 km, then:
Hence, larger the population, greater is the activity and then greater is the attraction. However, the gravity model is criticized because:
(i) The formula is very crude and shows a poor fit.
(ii)This is a static equilibrium model
(iii) It takes into account the interaction based on one activity.
(iv) It lacks behavioural considerations and causal explanations.
(b)The low of retail gravitation: This method was proposed by W.J. Reilly as a modification over Zipf’s ideas. He assumed that two centres attract trade from an intermediate place in direct proportion to the size (population size) of the centres and in inverse proportion to the square of the distance between either centres and an intermediate place. Mathematically speaking,
where, a and b are two cities, and
K = an intermediate place between a and b
Rak and Rbk = Volume of K’s trade ratio with respective cities a and b
dKa & dKb = distance from k to cities a and b
Pa and Pb = Population of cities a and b
Diagramatically it can be represented as:
Thus, it can be predicted that population of village k will patronise the services of town a twice as much as those of town b. But, the problem with this model is that in modern world the sphere of influences tend to overlap instead of remaining mutually exclusive. Also the cities differ not only in population size but also in terms of services and facilities available.
(c)Breaking Point Theory: P. Converse modified the Reilly’s low of retail gravitation in 1949 to predict the distance of the breaking point, i.e. the intermediate point between two cities. The interaction between the breaking point can be delimited by the help of the following formula:
where, i and j = two cities,
K = Breaking point between two cities
djk = Distance between j and the breakingpoint k
dij = Distance between i and j cities
PiPPj = Population of i and j cities
Supposing, two towns with population of 16,000 and 4,000 respectively are located 15 km apart, the breaking point will be at a distance of 5 km from the smaller city.
Hence, the city with a greater population would have a greater sphere of influence. Other indicators such as the size of working population or the number of retail outlets can be taken in place of population.
The quantitative methods are based on the assumption that the population residing between the cities will organise their shopping excursions in a rational manner, which is not true in every case. Moreover, these methods/models are over simplistic. They assume that the distant people are prepared to travel for goods of different types is the same; and that different people are all prepared to travel the same distance for similar goods. These assumptions are not true. Also the price and quality variation of goods is not taken into account.
Hence, it can be said that delimitation of urban spheres of influence is not so simple as to be appropriately done by a mathematical formula only. There are myriad of complex variables which are economic, social and psychological as well and all these variables can not be quantified. Boundaries obtained indicate a general character and should be considered/applied according to purpose and objective.
Question : Critically examine the role of growth centres and growth poles in regional development process.
(2001)
Answer : Within a limited natural resources availability, different models and theories have been developed for faster and balanced economic development. Among them, the concepts of growth pole and growth centre are most important. In the last few years, for regional development these concepts have been commonly used. This theory is based on the concept of “hierarchicalintegrated regional development”. Persons like Perox and Bodmila have contributed a lot in this direction.
The process of economic growth produces marked difference between regions, but even within prosperous regions, development is never evenly spread. Some places, by virtue of their fovoured location relative to sources of materials markets, labour and so on are economically more attractive. Such areas develop and expand economically more rapidly than the surrounding areas. The concept recognizes that economic development will not occur uniformly over a particular region but concentrates in particular locations. Such industrial growth attracts other linked industries and commercial activites, because of the external economies created and finally form natural growth poles. Such growth poles expand faster than other areas and are usually urban-industrial complexes and offer economies of agglomeration. They are found in all advanced economies and such concentrations can interact with their surrounding regions, spreading prosperity from the core to the periphery. Because of this, the growth pole concept has been used by governments in their regional economic planning as a method of stimulating growth, but because spread effects operate slowly, peripheral locations are still the least prosperous.
The impact of the growth pole is not limited to that particular region where it is situated. It’s affect is inter-regional and even upto the national level. Hence, the development of any growth pole is of national importance. The development target of a nation is visualised by the performance of the growth poles, where the inflow of capital is of large scale. On the other hand, growth centres are secondary level centres and they work on the local level. However, the development of growth centres is related to the development of growth poles. For the help of growth poles, a large number of growth centres exist. These growth centres decentralise the pressure of works, services and population in the growth pole region.
Growth poles are the centre of basic industries. Here, different types of goods and services are produced. From these centres the distribution of goods and services takes places in different directions. These centres have the facility of capital, technology and management. As they are situated in the centre, they have different geographical advantages. From these growth poles different facilities like capital, technology, management. etc spread to the lower level centres. Lower level growth centres not only minimise the population pressure of the growth pole but also visualise the integrated development of the region. Hence, the development of growth centres are necessary to minimise the regional disparities.
Sometimes, the growth poles visualise negative impact over their surrounding areas. Due to strong pull factor, a large number of population and capital move towards the growth pole. Consequently, the small centres in the surrounding areas face the scarcity of capital and skilled labour. These small centres are devoid of many facilities and finally,many of these centres are shut down leaving behind a large number of unemployed force. On the other hand, the growth poles monopoize the production of goods which were previously produced by small centres too. Besides the unemployed,labour force of small centres move towards the growth pole, creating there an extra population pressure.
In fact, the concept of growth pole is based on the idea of developed countries. In the developed nations, most of the people live in the urban centres. The economy of these countries are industry and service sector based and have a well developed transport system. Even, the small centres also produce high quality goods. Consequently, the growth poles and growth centres flourish side by side which ultimately guide the overall balanced development of a region.
In the developing world,the concept of growth pole is not so much fruitful. Many times, the development of growth poles enhance the regional disparities. There are many factors reponsible for it. Developing countries are facing the problems of illiteracy, unemployment and poverty. Here, the transport system is not so developed. Most of the people are engaged in agricultural activities and the urbanisation process is very much imbalanced. In context of India, it is totally true. For example, after independence in the Chhotanagpur region a large number of basic industries like iron and steel, cement, aluminium, etc. were established. But these industrial towns emerged as developed islands within the ocean of poverty. Growth poles and growth centres did not prove themselves as complementary to each other. Small centres were devoid of infrastructural facilities and finally most of them were shut down. As in the villages, agro and cottage industries did not flourish, a large scale migration took place towards the large urban and industrial centres. Consequently a large scale regional disparity developed.
In fact, the successful application of growth pole concept in the developing countries, like India depends on the strengthening of lower level growth centres. Along with large scale industries, small scale industries must be properly developed. The basic infrastructural facilities must be available at the grass root level. This is the only way of integrated balanced regional development.
Question : Concept of optimum population.
(2001)
Answer : Optimum population may be defined as the size of population enabling maximum per capita output and the highest possible living standards under given economic and technological conditions. In any region, the pressure of population on its available natural resources depends upon the level of technological advancement. The technological advancement determines that the particular region is over populated or optimum populated or under populated. The ability of a country to absorb a large increase in population depends upon a number of factors, including its size endowment of resources, social structure and the stage reached in its economic development.
For example, a decline in the population of U.K. to 35 million would necessitate the abandonment of many resources and a reduction in public services, with a resultant decline in living standards. Conversely, an increased population of over 80 million could not be supported at present living sandards with the current level of resource development. Hence, the optimum population lies somewhere between these two extremes. Experts suggest that the present population of 59 millions in UK is probably close to or even beyond the optimum figure and there is a growing feeling that the govt. should formulate an official population policy.
Rates of population growth and population density should always be considered in relation to a nation’s resources and economy. Different societies have different needs, traditions and aspirations, consequently there are no simple indices of over population, optimum population or under population. Optimum population in one country may be over population in another, depending on the level of economic development in the countries concerned. Similarly, changing social and economic conditions mean that optimum population today may be over population tomorrow.
Hence, the optimum population is a stage of equilibrium between the resources, population and technology. It is determind by per capita production, living standard, employment ratio, life expectancy, dependency ratio, per capita availability of food grains & energy, etc.
Question : What is region? Discuss the types of regions and the methods of regionalization.
(2000)
Answer : It is very difficult to define a region because the concept had been used by different people to mean different things. The very Vastness and the amorphous quality of the relationship between man and environment has landed the Geographer in a maze. The concept is generally linked with space and has spatial dimensions. The followers of this subjective approach treat region only as an idea by excepting the nation as a one point economy and arbitrarily divided it into as many regions as the need be, independent of considerations of space. However for most geographers and public in general region is an objective reality linked with Space and defined in terms of Space.
The First question of defining a region gets the Geographer bogged down in a welter of words. Thus sometimes part of a district, even a village, is called a region, while sometimes a state or even a group of states is regarded as a region.
As far as methods of delimiting a region are concerned, they can be grouped under three categories:
1.Homogeneity
2.Nodality
3.Programming
The first stresses homogeneity with reference to someone on Combination of physcial, economic Social or other characteristics, the second emphasizes the so called nodality or polarization, Usually around some central urban palce; and the third is programming or policy oriented concerned mainly with administrative coherence or identity between the area being studied and available political institutions for effectuating policy decisions. However the three categories are not mutually exclusive.
These similarities should not be stressed too far since basically the idea of Homogeneity emphasizes uniformity while the idea of Nodality underlines interdependence. The one gives a formal region and the other a functional region.
A formal region is a geographical area which is homozenous in terms of selected Geographical criteria (such as similar topography or climate), or selected economic criteria or social or political criteria.
When we stress physcial homogeneity we get natural regions. When economic homogeneity is stressed the concept of economic region emerges. Likewise there can be Socio-cultural regions. On the other hand a functional region emphasizes interdependence or linkages. It is composed of heterogeneous units such as cities, town and villages which are never the less functionally interrelated.
The problem arises in choosing a suitable criteria for delimiting and identifying a region. There are a number of pitfalls in the choice of criteria:
(i)It is possible that some factors identifying the regions may not be known to man as yet.
(ii)It is possible that some factors might have been given an importance less than their due and vice versa.
(iii) Some factors may not be amenable to measurement.
(iv) Measurement scale may not be accurate.
The above discussion suggests that regions are a means to an end rather then ends in themselves. Therefore a region can be an area of any size, homogenous in terms of specific criteria, distinguished from bordering area by a particular kind of association of related features and possessing same kind of internal cohesion.
Methods of Regionalization: Regionalization is the process of delineating regions. This process may take several forms depending on the purpose of regionalization, the criterian/coiterl to be used and data availability. Regionalization studies are studies of special structure that involve patterns and linkages in complex inter-relationship. It may involve the delimitation of formal regions using certain relevant criteria and the delineation of function regions to resolve congestion problem.
Delineation of Formal Regions: The delineation of formal region involves grouping together of local units which have similar characteristics according to certain clearly defined criteria. The resultant formal regions may not be perfectly homogeneous but must be homogeneous within certain clearly defined limits.
If the criteria are simple and static, identification is relatively simple but if there are a variety of criteria such as unemployment rates, migration trends, etc, then several techniques have actually been used to deliberate formal regions. Two of these representing the extremes:
(i)The weighted index number method has been outlined by Boudeville & has been developed by others into more sophisticated techniques such as cluster analysis and social area analysis. For policy regions there is need to isolate the main problem region-the area of 'economic malaises'. Problems implicit in this method are of course the choice of the original criteria, the choice of weights and the determination of acceptable homogeneity limits. Nevertheless, leause of its simplicity this is a well used method. Under the weighted index method various subtypes can be adopted-in the fixed index method on arbitrary weight is given to each index and a single weighted mean is obtained. Under the variable index method the weight given to each activity in each region is different and in accordance with the value or the valume regionally produced, for eg. If region 'A' is wheat region and region 'B' is coal region, the weight of wheat index will be largest in the former and the weight of coal index will be largest in the later.
(ii)The factor analysis method is a more sophisticated approach to regionalization which owes much to the pioneering work of BERRY in the USA. This can be used to isolate the basis factors and to group area on the basis of factor loading on his analysis of economic health regionalization in England Smith identify industrial charge & industrial structure as major industrial factors and social structures and population charge as major socio-economic factors.
Delineation of Functional Regions: The delineation of functional regions involves the grouping together of local units which display a considerable degree of interdependence two basic approaches are-flow analysis and gravitational analysis:
(i)Flow analysis build up functional regions of the basis of the direction and intensity of flours between the dominant centres and surrounding satellites. The number of telephone calls is the usual flow criteria and provides a useful index of a wide range of economic and social relationships. The flows are plotted in MATRIX form which the primary and secondary flows into and out of each centre can be identified.
(ii)Gravitational analysis is concerned with the theoretical forces of attraction between centres rather than the actual flow. The simple gravity model assumes that interaction between two centres is directly proportional to the mess of the centres and inversely proportional to the distance between them.
