Economic Planning Agency at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

GOSPLAN, gos-plan', is the economic planning agency of the Soviet Union. The name "Gos-plan" is a telescoped form of the full Russian title Gosudarstvenny Planovy Komitet (State Planning Committee). Before 1948 the agency was known as the State Planning Commission. Gosplan, which has been in existence in one form or another since 1921, is charged with formulating the short-term and long-range economic development plans of the Soviet Union.

City planning in the mid-20th century is not concerned merely with the physical aspects. Important as these are, they are regarded as the purposeful end of a complex of many factors. Put in another way, the 3-dimensional physical city is conceived as a means for accomplishing social ends rather than as an end in itself. As a practical matter, the economic status of a city must be included in the planning because the social structure rests upon the economic base. A bankrupt city can do little to help itself; a new town, without economic support, is doomed.

Its offices at all levels of the administrative hierarchy (republics, oblasts, cities, rayons) assist the national agency in drawing up the plans and supervising their execution. In the period from 1957 to 1965, when economic ministries were temporarily abolished and regional economic management authorities were established, Gos-plan gained additional importance as the country's economic coordinating body.