Optional Assignment
The Location Decision
Author: Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Adapted by: Dan Snyder
Read the article, investigate and learn the concepts, and
answer the questions at the end of the article. This optional assignment
is worth a maximum of 3 extra credit points.
1. The Importance of Transport in Location
In addition to being a factor of spatial organization,
transportation is linked with the location of socioeconomic activities,
including retail, manufacturing and services. In a market economy, location is
the outcome of a
constrained choice where many issues are being considered, transportation
being one of them. The goal is to find a suitable location that would maximize
the economic returns for this activity. There is a long tradition within
economic geography in developing
location theories with a view to explain and predict the
locational logic of economic activities by incorporating market,
institutional and
behavioral considerations. The majority of location theories have an
explicit or implicit role attributed to transport. As there are no absolute
rules dictating locational choices, the importance of transport can only be
evaluated with varying degrees of accuracy. At best, the following observations
concerning transportation modes and terminals and their importance for location
can be made:
- Ports and airports. Convergence of related
activities around terminals, particularly for ports since inland
distribution costs tend to be high. The location and the level of activity
of
ports and
airports is reflective of global trade patterns.
- Roads and railroads. A structuring and
convergence effect that varies according to the level of accessibility. For
rail transport, terminals also have a convergence effect.
- Telecommunications. No specific local
influence, but the quality of regional and national telecommunication
systems tends to ease transactions.
Globalization has been associated with significant changes
in business operations and markets. Managing operations in such an environment
has become increasingly complex, especially with the territorial extension of
production and consumption. Manufacturing strategies tend to use different
locations for each component of a product in order to optimize respective
comparative advantages. Transport requirements have proportionally increased as
well in order to organize the related flows. The requirement of faster long
distance transport services has propelled the importance of air transport,
especially for freight. Air terminals have thus become a significant location
factor for globally oriented activities, which tend to agglomerate in the
vicinity. Additionally, the surge in long distance trade has made logistical
functions, namely transport terminals and distribution centers, at the forefront
of locational considerations. Technological changes have also been linked with
the relocation of industrial and even service activities.
Global telecommunication facilities can favor the outsourcing of several
services to lower cost locations, such as the case of call centers in India
indicates.
2. Location Factors
The location of economic activities is a priori dependent
on the nature of the activity itself and on certain
location factors such as the attributes of the site, the level of
accessibility and the socioeconomic environment. Although each type
of economic activity has its own set of location factors, some general factors
can be identified by major economic sector:
- Primary economic activities. Their dominant
location factor is related to environmental endowments, such as
natural resources. For instance, mining takes place where economically
recoverable mineral deposits are found and agriculture is subject to
environmental constraints such as soil fertility, precipitation and
temperature. Primary activities are thus characterized by the most basic
location factors but have a strong reliance on transportation since their
locations rarely are close to centers of demand. Substantial investments in
extraction and distribution infrastructures must thus be made before
resources can be brought to markets. The capacity to transport raw materials
plays a significant role in the possible development of extractive
activities at a location.
- Secondary economic activities. Imply a complex
web of location factors which, depending upon the industrial sector, relate
to labor (cost and/or skill level), energy costs, capital, land, markets
and/or proximity of suppliers. Location is thus an important cost factor
(cost minimization). Considering the wide variety of industrial and
manufacturing activities, understanding the rationale of each sector is a
difficult task that has been subject to many investigations in economic
geography. Globalization, recent developments in supply chain management and
global production networks have made the situation even more complex
with the presence of many intermediaries and significant
locational changes. The industrialization of China has been supported by
several strategies trying to multiply locational advantages, such as the
setting of export-oriented
special economic zones and large investment in transport infrastructure.
- Tertiary economic activities. Involve
activities that are most bound to market proximity, since the capacity to
sell a product or service is their most important location requirement. As
many of these activities are retail-oriented, consumer proximity (as well as
their level of income) is essential and is directly related to sale levels.
The main focus is to maximize sales revenues. Location is thus an important
revenue factor (revenue maximization). The retail industry has
significantly changed with the emergence of large retail stores that
maximize sales through economies of scale and local accessibility.
E-commerce (through the Internet) also provides a new dynamic where information can easily be
traded and where niche retailing markets can be developed in a situation of
high product diversity.
- Quaternary economic activities. Imply
activities not linked to environmental endowments or access to a market, but
to high level services (banking, finance, insurance, real estate) focused on information and capital (data and dollars); dominantly the high technology sector. With improvements in
telecommunications, many of these activities can be located almost anywhere
as demonstrated by the recent trend to locate call centers offshore. There
are still some strong locational requirements for high technology activities
that include proximity to large universities, research centers, and to a
pool of highly qualified workers (as well as cheap labor for supporting
services). Availability of venture capital, a high quality of life (cultural
amenities) and access to excellent transportation and telecommunication
facilities are all examples of locational influences on quaternary activities. However, as telecommunication infrastructures are becoming
globally ubiquitous and accessible, such proximity is of lesser importance.
- Note: many of the same considerations for quaternary activities can be applied toward quinary economic activities, such as healthcare, research and
development, and high level management.
Each of these sectors thus has its own criteria, which
vary in time and space. However,
basic location strategies appear to be dominantly a cost minimization or a
revenue maximization endeavor. Understanding location factors enables a better
overview of the dynamics of the global economy and the associated territorial
changes at the global, regional and local levels.
3. Accessibility and Location
Since accessibility is dominantly the outcome of
transportation activities, namely the capacity of infrastructures to support
mobility, it presents the most significant influence of transportation on
location. Hence, it appears that
location (accessibility) and economic activities are intimately linked.
Accessibility plays an important role by offering more customers through an
expanded market area, by making distribution more efficient (in terms of costs
and time), or by enabling more people to reach workplaces. While some transport
systems have favored the dispersion of socioeconomic activities (e.g.
automobiles and suburbanization), others have favored their concentration (e.g.
airports and container terminals). All systems are bearers of spatial
specialization and configuration. Among the main configuration forces are:
- Transportation costs. Refer to the benefits of
a location that minimizes transport costs either for passengers or freight.
This is at the core of
classic industrial location theories (e.g., Weber) where
transport-dependent activities seek to
minimize total transport costs. With the expansion of transport
infrastructures, shifts in manufacturing, new economic activities such as
high technology, logistical management and an overall decline in transport
costs, cost minimization is no longer a substantial consideration in
location. However, transport costs cannot be easily dismissed and must be
considered in a wider context where the quality and reliability of transport
is of growing importance. It has been demonstrated that travel time, instead
of distance, is the determining factor behind commuting ranges, a notion
that increasingly applies to freight distribution.
-
Agglomeration economies. Refer to the benefits of having activities
locate (cluster) next to another, such as the use of common infrastructures
and services. Clustering continues to be a powerful force in location as the
reduction in transport costs favored the agglomeration of retail,
manufacturing and distribution activities at specific locations. For
instance, shopping malls are based on agglomeration economies, offering
customers a wide variety of goods and services in a single location.
Distribution activities, even unrelated, have also a tendency to cluster.
The development of special economic zones, many export-oriented, also
benefit from the clustering effect.
- Economies of density. Somewhat related to
economies of agglomeration, but focus on spatial coverage and proximity. For
instance, a retailer can achieve several types of cost savings by locating
its stores in proximity to one another. Such a structure reduces logistics
and delivery costs by sharing a distribution center. Other advantages may
include the possibility to relocate part of the workforce between nearby
facilities and having shared advertising. In such a circumstance, the
locational strategies are based on proximity to existing facilities, even if
this implies the selection of sub-optimal locations.
Because of the level of accessibility they provide, new
transport infrastructures influence the setting of economic activities. It
becomes a particularly strong effect when new infrastructure are added to an
undeveloped (or underdeveloped) site and thus locational decision tend to be
simpler and unhindered by the existing spatial structure. The locational effects
on activities are not always automatic or evident. They are important however
when infrastructure is accompanied by social, economic and urban transformations
of space. New infrastructures therefore play a catalytic role, because they are
capable of transforming space.
Questions/tasks:
1. The location
of businesses is of prime importance in any era. Discuss how modern
transportation and globalization influence the location decision (the best
location) of modern business.
2. What are the
dominant location factors for primary and secondary
economic activities? How do they differ?
3. What are the
dominant location factors for tertiary and quaternary
economic activities? How do they differ?
4. Discuss the
basic difference between cost minimization and revenue maximization. How
do these concepts work together to help determine the location decision?
5. Define
accessibility, and explain how it presents the most significant influence of
transportation on location.
6. Discuss and summarize three
configuration forces that influence the location decision.