Logistics Sprawl and Urban Freight Planning Issues in a Major Gateway City - Sustainable Urban Logistics: Concepts, Methods and Information Systems - page 50

centrographic analysis showing the locational patterns of freight facilities
throughout the region ( Sects. 4 and 5 ). Section 6 covers the way local governments
deal with the reality of logistics activities.

2 Background and Literature Review 1

The warehousing industry has undergone major restructuring, transforming it into
a distribution industry serving major importers (Christopherson and Belzer 2009 )
and big box retailers, based on direct access to consumption markets and hub and
spoke networks. Starting in the 1980s, the U.S. and many other parts of the world
entered a ''new distribution economy'' (Hesse and Rodrigue 2004 ), an economy
largely dependent upon efficient and increasingly globalized networks of goods
distribution and just-in-time operations. This has led to a reduction in large
inventories of intermediate and end products and a concomitant rise in hub dis-
tribution centers (Movahedi et al. 2009 ). Modern distribution centers are large
(over 500,000 square feet) and require substantial investments in material handling
technology (EEOC 2004 ). Very large distribution centers, or ''mega DCs''
(Andreoli et al. 2010 ) have driven the recent growth in warehousing establish-
ments. Between 1998 and 2005, the number of distribution centers with more than
100 employees increased twice as fast as smaller facilities (Andreoli et al. 2010 ).
Global supply chains require more logistics facilities, and the way these
facilities are spatially organized has become a key feature of an efficient goods
distribution network. The rise and characteristics of today's distribution centers are
directly responsible for the polarization of freight facilities in large conurbations.
The efficiency of goods distribution depends upon the optimal location and sizing
of freight terminals rather than directly upon transport costs. Freight transportation
costs have decreased dramatically over the last thirty years, and for many indus-
tries they have become ''trivial'' (Glaeser and Kohlhase 2004 ). ''Improvements
in transport technologies, the massive enlargement of infrastructure and falling
transport costs, not least thanks to cheap oil, changed the role of transport in the
second half of the 20th century (…) putting transport out of consideration in
economic geography'' (Hall et al. 2006 ). Low freight costs create what Rodrigue
( 2004 ) calls an ''increased locational flexibility'' for freight and logistics facilities.
The opportunity for good regional and national networking between facilities
within a supply chain is a key factor. ''Ultimately, the changed geography of
warehousing is not just about the restructuring of space within metropolitan areas,
it is about the spaces connecting metropolitan, regional and national economies.
The proliferation and expansion of warehouses and their predilection for easily
accessed suburban sites is being driven by the thickening of long-distance linkages
among distant economies'' (Bowen 2008 , p. 386).

1

This section is adapted from Dablanc and Ross ( 2012 ).