1032 PONTIFICIAE ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARVM SCRIPTA VARIA - 28
FRISCH
1 have three suggestions to make. First, we must distinguish
between different things we may think of when we subdivide ac-
cording to regions or spatial distribution. For instance we may think
of regional flows of goods and services, from one region to another, or
from one centre to another, inc'uding in this flow of goods and ser-
vices also the flow of information leading to such concepts as noise
in information channels and the like. Second, we may think of the
pyramidation, or the regional distribution of decisional power.
Third, we must look a bit closer into the question of what we
really mean by a region or a center.
I think that when we speak of the first point of view, i. e. the
flow of goods and services between regions and centers even including
the flow of information, the viewpoint is not fundamentally new. In
a sense it does not introduce too much innovation in our way of
thinking. But, when it comes to distributing, decisional power, the
problem becomes extremely complex. We are facing the difficulty of
programming a decisional machinery at the top, and at the same time
elaborating rules and regulation for the working of the decisional ma-
chinery in the individual regions and centres, which is such that the
ntentions of the centre are realized when certain decisions and a
certain amount of programming analysis is left to be done in the
regions and centres. Mathematically speaking, I have found it next
to impossible to attack this problem in a straightforward program-
ming way (1) and at the moment I can see no better way out than
to build up some kind of simulation or artificially constructed games
of decision at various centres. Then, third with regard to the defi-
nition — what we mean by a region or a centre. I think it will be
a fallacy to concentrate too much on the traditional geographical
subdivisions, for instance administrative subdivisions in regions or
in states within a union or local! administrations within a state and
(') Note added July 1964: in the spring of this year I made an
attempt in a University of Pittsburgh memorandum, building on my non
complex method for enlving non linear programming problems
121 Isard - pag. 20
