22 
and that the structural imbalance that results from concentrating 
expansion at the growth point will result in higher average in- 
come per capita for the region as a whole. 
Secondly, the key industries emphasized in growth point dis- 
cussions are, since their function is to accelerate growth within the 
region, probably export industries (i.e., industries serving a 
national market). 
Thirdly, the growth point will, in time, service its surrounding 
area by providing the population of that area with supplies of 
goods and services that need a high minimum population threshold 
for viability. Such goods and services will include: physical com- 
modities, such as consumer durables supplied by department 
stores or specialty stores; services supplied by the private sector 
such as the professional services of lawyers and accountants, or 
entertainment. and leisure facilities; public services that lend 
themselves to economies of scale (technical colleges and special 
hospital services). 
Finally, the growth point or new community has a socio- 
economic function to apply, that is to affect prevailing attitudes 
toward the desirability of economic growth. In regions with a 
slow growth record, one of the objectives of importing an advanced 
technological industrial complex to the growth point is to trans- 
form social attitudes and to make economic growth more likely 
in the future. This is achieved by the incentives of higher wages 
making local workers more productivity-minded and by the 
growth industries showing local entrepreneurs the possibilities of 
erow th and highlighting the existence of investment opportuni- 
ties. 
In summary, agglomeration economies make concentrations of 
production and population more efficient than dispersal. These econ- 
omies include increasing the return to scale within firms, external 
technological economies and economies of scale in the supply of 
urban services. Even in a free market economy there is unbalanced 
growth spatially. Industrial activity, establishments supplymg public 
utilities and other services that require a high population threshold 
for viability, and population expansion itself will cluster around 
certain focal points. The operation of market forces will have selected 
these focal points because they have special locational advantages— 
access to raw materials or markets, unique nontransportable facilities, 
or favorable topological features. These growth centers have influen- 
tial effects on activity in the region where they are located. Their 
expansion may divert activity from peripheral areas which may lose 
population and fail to gain a proportionate share of capital and 
entrepreneurial talent, but from the point of view of the region as a 
whole this diversionary tendency will be more than offset by the 
induced economic expansion in the “zones of indifferences surrounding 
each center.” These induced benefits will include: 
_ Provision of employment for the zone’s population and markets 
for input-supply and primary industries. The assumption behind 
growth point analysis as a planning tool is that the agglomeration 
that proves profitable for the private investor and entrepreneur 
also results in benefits to society as a whole (especially in the 
16 Thid., p. 425. 
