ABSTRACT
This paper will examine various issues relating to the identification, measurement and policy evaluation of urban and regional phenomena, which can lead to problems of analysis and interpretation. In particular, in many environments the importance of evidence-based policy design, analysis, and evaluation is increasing, and this paper will argue that, in such environments, there is no substitute for empirical work based on formal models. At the same time, the paper also argues that much of the current thinking regarding urban and regional issues is increasingly driven by concepts and constructs that do not lend themselves to empirical evaluation or evidence-based analysis. As a result, there appears to be something of a contradiction between the different strands of urban and regional analysis in that while policy-thinking is driven less by formal models, policy evaluation increasingly requires formal evaluation. This stems from the fact that many strands of literature within the urban and regional field are not only fundamentally different but often also methodologically inconsistent; and where public policy is based on constructs that are a hybrid amalgamation of these different strands, these differences can lead to real difficulties.
