APPLICATION OF THE CO-PLOT METHOD IN THE STUDY OF SOCIOECONOMIC DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CITIES - A BASIS FOR A DIFFERENTIAL DEVELOPMENT POLICY

Research on regional development devotes little attention to socio-eco nomic distinctions within peripheral and core regions, but rather, str esses disparities between regions. The findings of the present study p oint to the need to reconsider regional development by placing the mai n emphasis on the fashioning of a differential regional development po licy, together with or in preference to a homogeneous or uniform polic y. The significance of this finding transcends the Israeli case (40 de velopment towns). This finding was exposed by the application of a new method, the co-plot. Co-plot enables the simultaneous study of observ ations and variables for a set of data. Co-plot maps the observations (rows of a matrix) in such a way that similar observations are closely located on the map. Each variable is represented individually by an a rrow.