ABSTRACT
City-planning regulations date, in the United States, as in the United Kingdom, mainly from the early years of the present century. In the sixties, the strengthening of regional policy – the combination of control on industrial building with incentives establishes in the more peripheral parts of the country. Comparing the situation with that of Greater London, one has to remember that the Paris region is very much the larger area. However, as most of these has been part of a strategy for either reducing congestion within a congested region or for reviving or developing regions. The balance between these different effects of what Americans call 'investment in human capital' in depressed or backward regions is hard to predict, or even to assess after the event. The fundamental ingredients of regional policy have been mixed in very different proportions and total quantities in different countries, according to the nature of their problems and their political and social structures and traditions.
