Lessons from the Debate on Location Analysis in Rural Economic Development

Several lessons have been learned from the debate on appropriate methods for locating urban functions in developing rural areas. While location-allocation models are superior for well-defined service location selection problems where suitable data and modeling skills are available, the urban functions in rural development methodology is superior where objectives are poorly specified, data sparse, and modeling skills poor. A wide variety of issues occur in rural development planning, but current theory and methods in regional science are poorly developed to deal with them. The area needs considerably more research.