Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 5.2
Employment by sector and year in Strathclyde and Scotland (in thousands).
Region
S
ector
1971
1
991
1
993
Strathclyde
Manufacturing:
388.8
172.9
142.0
Metals & engineering
219.1
87.1
Other manufacturing
67.2
75.8
Services
250.1
604.5
614.3
Total employment
1009.6
850.7
824.8
Scotland
Total employment
2002.5
2003.8
1972.3
S
ervices
1
049.9
1
405.8
1
451.7
Source: Scottish Abstract of Statistics,
Scottish Office (1973, 1995).
universities around the city covering a range of technical and professional
types of education. Some of these services link in to the growing computer and
electronics industry in Silicon Glen, the corridor between Glasgow and
Edinburgh. Such a development should not be exaggerated; educational services
are indeed supplied all around Britain, and Glasgow is not the most prestigious
provider. Financial services of a high order are still provided more by Edinburgh
than Glasgow, and Silicon Glen is a region more for electronic goods assembly
rather than research, the design of software, or company control and
administration (Turok 1993). Over 50 per cent of the employment in the
electronics industries, by 1990, was in foreign-owned firms, which normally had
their central administration and research functions in other countries. The point
to be made is rather that a manufacturing past does not confine a city or a region
to a manufacturing future.
However, there is no inevitability that manufacturing industry will find a
replacement in services. At the national level, there is a gradual move from
manufacturing to services, but at the regional level, services tend to grow in
complementary fashion to new manufacturing, and manufacturing decline is
often accompanied by service decline. We may exemplify this from another
region in Britain, the Greater London region. Here there is rapid growth of
economic activity in the outer ring around London's west and north sides. The
ring, or as Hall et al. (1987) termed it, the “Western Crescent”, extends from
Hampshire through Berkshire into Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and
Cambridgeshire. This high-tech zone may today be added to by bringing in the
M4 corridor from London to Bristol, which has attracted industry and services to
a necklace of small towns along its route, such as Swindon, Bath, Chippenham,
and Bristol itself. A key feature in all of this is the business services that are
characteristic of modern industries—management consultancy, accountancy,
market research, marketing, advertising, and computer services (Marshall et al.
1988). One kind of analysis of this Western Crescent is that it represents counter-
