Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
seen not just as “services” to industry or to the population at large, in the sense
of a purely dependent kind of activity, but as independent production sectors of
the economy, and in some cases important export earners for the countries
concerned.
These industries are not distributed in patterns that are dependent on
manufacturing industry. Instead, and again increasingly, they have distinctive
spatial patterns which the geographer is advised to study. One of the most
distinctive patterns is that of the global cities, located in relation to the
international economy rather than any single national market.
Services have commonly been left out of any regional policy for development.
This would appear to be an error in view of their lead role in some countries. On
the other hand, their locational preferences are difficult to plan
per se,
since these
are industries that do not necessarily respond to classical location factors such as
the presence of materials, power, or major transport lines. Some of the recent
developments in service industries have depended rather on the spread of factors
that can be given the encompassing name of “quality of life”. The attraction of a
particular location becomes one for the workers in the industry, rather than for
the machines and the process involved. As a general rule, this might be expected
to move major service concentrations away from traditional industrial sites, in
the case of the older industrial countries, since these became disfigured by
mining and heavy industry and do not present attractive landscapes. There is thus
a shift, still going on, from snowbelt to sunbelt, from north to south, within the USA
and Europe, towards new locations. The shift is also social, away from areas of
monolithic big industry, towards areas where there are concentrations of small
firms and the entrepreneurship that is responsible for them.
