Theory and policy in regional science

These remarks were ones I made as the discussant of Koichi Mera’s presidential address to the meeting of the Western Regional Science Association, Rio Rico, Arizona, February 2003. Rather than dwelling on the many points of agreement between Mera and myself, I offer a few thoughts of my own on the role of theory and policy in the field of regional science. Regional science can be seen as an agglomeration of a theory community and a policy community, and both are important to the success of the agglomeration. I describe some ways the two communities should relate to each other. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2004