A short history of the field of regional science

The Regional Science Association was founded 50 years ago in December 1954; however, the institutional origins of the field were much earlier, perhaps when Walter Isard began his graduate studies in economics at Harvard University. This article briefly traces the history of the field of regional science and its association from those beginnings to the present. The focus of the article is the evolution of the association as an institution, and some of its major contributors, and to a much lesser extent, on the scope and scholarly content of the field. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin/Heidelberg 2003