Threshold Analysis-an Economic Tool for Town and Regional Planning

Abstract

This article deals with a method of increasing co-operation between physical planners and economists by development of the technique of threshold analysis. This form of analysis of planning decisions is based on the fact that the development of an urban area encounters obstacles caused by topography, the public utilities network and existing land uses. These obstacles, easily conceived of spatially, also have an economic significance in two respects; (a) capital expenditure will be necessary to overcome the threshold, (b) the threshold may mark a new, higher-cost period of development for the area.

The threshold, therefore, is a concept with significance for both planning and economic analysis. It can improve communication between the disciplines because a threshold may be designated by a line on a planning map or an inflexion point on a cost curve. Analysis of costs based on thresholds makes possible a number of insights into the efficiency of investment planning associated with development but, perhaps more important, it accommodates the economists' methodology of comparing alternatives.

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References

Lothians Regional Survey and Plan (2 vols.), H.M.S.O., Edinburgh, 1966.

Grangemouth/Falkirk Regional Survey and Plan, H.M.S.O. , Edinburgh, 1968.

Resources are usually classified into the so-called factors of production, land (including natural resources), labour and capital goods.

i.e. by increasing the productivity of one or more of the factors of production.

For further explanation see R.G. Lipsey , An Introduction to Positive Economics , PP-. 51-55.

See above and for further explanation P.A. Samuelson , Economics (6th edition), p. 158.

B. Malisz , The Economics of Shaping Towns, Polish Academy of Sciences , 1963.

Grangemouth/Falkirk Regional Survey and Plan, Volume II, Physical Aspects , H.M.S.O., Edinburgh, 1968.

See J. Kozlowski and J.T. Hughes , 'Urban Threshold Theory and Analysis', Journal of the Town Planning Institute, Vol. 53 (2), February 1967, pp. 55-60.

10.

SYMAP is a computer programme for producing maps which depict spatially disposed quantitative and qualitative information; it has been developed by Howard T. Fisher, Director of the Laboratory for Computer Graphics, Harvard University.