Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 April 2015
A growing awareness of the need for a comprehensive approach to regional and local planning for studying urban and rural areas as parts of an interrelated socio-economic system has stimulated interest in the problem of delineating economic regions, areas, and sub-areas. The Office of Business Economics, U. S. Department of Commerce, has designated 173 economic sub-areas in the U. S. for purposes of planning by federal agencies. State governments are also busy delineating planning areas for state and local agencies. Ten such planning areas were designated in South Carolina by executive order of the Governor in March 1969. Presumably, future public policies and programs in such fields as natural resource management, industrial development, housing, and highway construction, etc., will be designed and implemented on the basis of these spatial delineations.