Title: The strategy of territorial integration in regional development: Defining territoriality
Abstract: Abstract The idea of territorial integration can be seen as a basic concept in the recent, loosely defined ‘neoregionalist’ approach to spatial policy and planning. Lying between a social Utopia and various methods or doctrines of regional science, this idea has no coherent theoretical basis at all. This problem will be approached here from the geographical viewpoint, i.e. from the point of view of the concept of territoriality. This aim is to avoid abstract conceptualization and instead to arrive at a concrete reality, primarily the reality of the Scandinavian countries (as one of the intellectual contexts of neoregionalism). Instead of physical unit, i.e. territory, a more interesting starting point is to consider territoriality as a socio-spatial concept. Thus, instead of the abstraction of region, the focal point would be the locality as a basic element of the multi-level settlement and community structure, i.e. as the arena for everyday life (way of life) of a community. Problems of local interest may then be discussed in relation to national and/or class interests. Thus the basic dialectic opposition can be seen to exist between the structural realities of the global economy and local action. The essential intermediate level between them is the nation-state, while the region as a kind of subnational level is conceptually and strategically a problematic unit.
Publication Year: 1987
Publication Date: 1987-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 7
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