Abstract
In this paper I take as a starting point the view that nationally available statistical series in the United Kingdom provide an inadequate basis for urban planning and research. The purpose of this paper is to describe a suite of integrated information systems that has been developed to support both an annual policy planning process and research into urban adjustment processes and structures. The paper comprises four main sections. In the first section, some design criteria for urban and regional information systems are set out. In the second section, recent urban change in Telford, a new town in the West Midlands Region of the United Kingdom, is discussed in order to describe the operational context in which the local information systems have been developed and used. In the third section, each information system is described: the framework in which the information systems have been arranged in order to support policy planning and research into urban processes and structures is then described. The purpose of the fourth section is to present the results of a research project into labor market adjustment by exploring the relationship between sectoral industrial structure and sectoral unemployment rates, durations, and flows.
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