This paper comments on some aspects of the papers from the BSRSA Workshop on Regional Science Methods in Structure Planning published in the August 1979 issue of this journal. It suggests that some of the contradictions and paradoxes apparent in those papers may be resolved if a distinction is made between those urban modelling activities carried out with and those carried out without a realistic concern to improve actual planning processes, whether immediately or otherwise. The alternative attitudes, entitled ‘urgent’ and ‘nonurgent’ respectively, and some of the implications of the distinction are discussed.
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