Regional development is a multifaceted endeavor that involves economic growth, community involvement, and sustainability. It can be implemented through government agencies that work domestically in a specific region or through organizations made up of multiple countries that address issues like clean energy and job creation. This effort is becoming increasingly important as communities recognize the need to balance economic growth with environmental stewardship, which can have long-term benefits for their region.
In contemporary social science, the notion of regional development has broadened to include noneconomic factors such as culture and institutions. This shift is a significant development in the field of geographical analysis and reflects the fact that contemporary societies are multi-faceted and complex and can no longer be understood solely through economic measures.
Despite this, scholars of regional development remain focused on a number of dominant questions that have defined the field, including how value is created and enhanced in a given territory as well as how to cope with undesirable interregional welfare discrepancies. These questions are framed within two influential traditions in the field: a concern for allocating scarce resources (e.g., capital, labor, physical and natural resources) as efficiently as possible; and a desire to promote local economic opportunities, which can be achieved through policies that support businesses and encourage investment.
Oftentimes, these efforts are articulated through metaphors, which have the potential to make complex concepts easier to understand. This is particularly true when these metaphors relate to the past and future of a region as well as how new developments are expected to shape its future.