ABSTRACT
The most general impression left by the regional surveys is of the need for careful planning of the economic development of prosperous and potentially depressed districts. A number of the more prosperous areas in the South-east may be faced with problems of the kind illustrated by the Hertfordshire Survey's comment on the need to ensure in the national interest that local firms play an adequate part in post-war export drives. Comprehensive planning must of course rest on a background of comprehensive and reasonably comparable statistical information. A further general impression left by the Survey is of the need for more investigation of the prospects for the industrial employment of women after the war. The difficulty of defining persistent excess unemployment is great enough at any time, and in view of the uncertainty of economic conditions after the war no numerical estimate could have any value. In other cases far-reaching reorganization is required to put an industry on an economic basis.
