[2] Although the European Union is one of the richest parts of the world, there are large internal disparities of income and opportunity between its regions.
The major Italian experience of regional policy is the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno, set up in the mid-1950s to foster economic development in southern Italy.
New roads, irrigation projects and developments in infrastructure were built in an area where local communities had suffered seriously from poverty, de-population and high levels of emigration.
Despite criticism by a 1970s Royal Commission that it was "Empiricism run mad; a game of hit and miss played with more enthusiasm than success",[5] governments of both parties maintained Assisted Areas.
Under the 1980s Thatcher government, regional policy was significantly rolled back, with Assisted Areas substantially reduced in size.
The post-1997 Labour administration reorganised regional policy, with RSA replaced by Selective Finance for Investment in England and Scotland.
From the spatial level, it carries out strategic planning, guidance and control characterized by the unity of regional development.
During China's Third Front construction, concerns of invasion by the Soviet Union or the United States prompted the development of infrastructure, industry, and specialized talent remote regions, ultimately laying a foundation for continued economic development in China's western regions even after the end of the initiative.
In order to make some areas rich first, it encourages coastal cities [11] and regions with low cost, quick effect, easy project landing and convenient foreign trade to develop first, and open up the riverside, belt and inland areas in stages, with emphasis and efficiency.
After more than 20 years of reform and opening up, the unbalanced development strategy is oriented by "efficiency" and adopts the policy of inclining to the East, which promotes the rapid development of economic core areas such as the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta and the Bohai rim, and economic growth poles such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.
[12]: 66 In the early 2000s, the government began to finance construction of cross-regional transportation to improve accessibility to, and develop of, China's interior regions.
[14]: 207 In March 2004, Premier Wen Jiabao announced The Rise of the Central Regions during his delivery of the Annual Report of the State Council.