Regional Science for what?: Policy orientation of WRSA

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I am honored for being given this opportunity to address the members of the Western Regional Science Association that has its own tradition and orientation. I personally like this organization as the organization meets in a friendly atmosphere and spends a greater amount of time for each paper presented. However, at the same time, I am concerned with the fact that many of the papers Regional Scientists produce do not have very much to do with real-world problems we have. As many of past presidents of this association and other Regional Science organizations have expressed, many of us share the concern that Regional Science may not be addressing real world problems very much (such as Rodwin 1959; Harris 1968; Chinitz 1971; Hwang 1989; Funk 1989; Jensen 1991; Quigley 2001). What is Regional Science for? If Regional Science is not an instrument for solving real world problems, then why do we have to devote ourselves to this field of study? There is a view that there is value in intellectual pursuit of knowledge itself. Indeed, some of our fields in science may have developed without any specific purpose of utilizing the results of the study for practical purposes. However, some of us, and perhaps many of us, are not satisfied with such a situation. Particularly, those scholars affiliated with schools or departments of public policy, economics, urban planning, business, and engineering would not be fully satisfied with Regional Science without any practical use. In what follows, I would like to reflect on some of the pertinent issues, to survey the current situation of this field of study, and to make certain assessment about the future of this field of study. Regional Science has been with us since 1954 with the establishment of Regional Science Association, a forerunner of RSAI. During the past half Ann Reg Sci (2004) 38:349–356 DOI: 10.1007/s00168-003-0172-7