Chapter 12 Key issue 1 Vocab is already defined in the notes. ______________________________________________________________________ Three types of services - - - Consumer services: provides services to individuals who want and can pay for them - ½ of all jobs in the U.S. - Four subdivisions: - Retail and wholesale services (14% of US jobs) - Education services (15%) - Health and social services (14%) - Leisure and hospitality (9%) Business services: facilitates other businesses - ¼ of all jobs in the U.S. - Three subdivisions: - Professional services (law management, accounting, architecture, secretarial; 14%) - Financial services or FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate; 7%) - Transportation and information services (warehousing, trucking, utilities, 7%) Public services: provide security and protection for citizens and businesses - 10% of all jobs in the U.S. - Three levels of government: - Federal government (⅙ of public sector employees) - State government (¼ of public sector employees) - Local government (⅗ of public sector employees) Rising and Falling Service Employment - Service sector employment has increased worldwide Has also been the most negatively impacted by the recession Change in the Number of Employees - Within business services, jobs expanded the most in professional services Within consumer services, the fastest increase has been in the provision of health care Key issue 2 Central Place Theory: explains distribution of services based on the fact that settlements serve as centers of market areas for services; larger settlements are fewer and farther apart than smaller settlements and provide services for a large number of people who are willing to travel farther Central Place: market center for the exchange of services by people attracted from the surrounding area (centrally located to increase accessibility) Market Area (Hinterland): area surrounding a central place from which people are attracted to sue the place’s goods and services Range: the maximum distance people are willing to travel to use a service Primate City Rule: a pattern of settlements in a country such that the largest settlement has more than twice as many people as the second-ranking settlement Primate City: the largest settlement in a country, if it has more than twice as many people as the second-ranking settlement Gravity Model: model which holds that the potential use of a service at a particular location is directly related to the number of people in a location and inversely related to the distance people must travel to reach the service ______________________________________________________________________ Central place theory: explains why consumers services follow a pattern based on the size of settlements; larger settlements offer more varied services - Walter Christaller: proposed the concept of a central place in the 1930s Range and Threshold of a Market Area - People travel short distances for everyday services, e.g. groceries and movie rentals People travel greater distances for services offered exclusively in specific places e.g. concerts and sporting events Service providers determine the suitability of a service center by overlaying the range of potential customers to its threshold Hierarchy of Consumer Services - Consumer services wich small thresholds, short rangers, and small market areas are found in small settlements Larger settlements provide consumer services that have larger thresholds, ranges, and market areas MDCs have many small settlements with small thresholds and ranges and far fewer large settlements with large thresholds and ranges Nesting of Services and Settlements - CPT states that market areas across an MDC are shaped like hexagons (unless affected by physical features) Four levels of market: - Hamlet (smallest) - Village - Town - City (largest) Rank-size Distribution of Settlements - Ranking settlements (largest to smallest) in MDCs makes a regular pattern/hierarchy Rank-size rule states that the country’s nth-largest settlement is 1/n the population of the largest settlement Exceptions: primate city (a city more than twice the population of the second-ranking settlement; ex. Mexico City and Guadalajara/ Paris and Champagne) Market Area Analysis - Location of a business is the most important factor to profitability to service providers Steps to determine a location’s profitability - Compute the range - Compute the threshold - Draw the market area Key issue 3 Hierarchy of Business Services - All urban settlements provide consumer services but not every settlement of a given size has the same number/types of business services Urban settlements tend to specialize in one/few specific business services Geographers distinguish four levels of urban settlements based on how important they are as business service providers Business Services in Global Cities - Global cities/world cities are at the top of the urban settlement hierarchy - Global cities are divided into three areas: - Alpha - Beta - Gamma - Ex: New York (alpha ++) and Chicago (alpha +) - Megacities (over 10 million people); over ½ of 20 largest cities are in LDCs Business Services in Developing Countries - Some businesses locate in LDCs because their laws/regulations are much less strict and they offer a large, low-wage workforce Two types of business services offered in LDCs - Offshore financial services - Taxes (tax breaks include no taxes on income/profits/capital gains) - Privacy (bank secrecy laws help people/businesses avoid disclosure in their home countries) - Business-Processing Outsourcing - Back-office functions (such as insurance claims, payroll management, etc.) can be performed by low-wage workers in LDCs - LDCs have large workforces fluent in English and are attractive to businesses looking to outsource some work Economic Base of Settlements - A settlements distinctive economic structure derives from its basic industries (export to consumers outside the settlement) Nonbasic industries are enterprises whose customers live in the same community (basically consumer services) Multiplier effect: increase in basic jobs increases non-basic jobs Economic Base of Settlements - Technopoles refers to a center of high-tech manufacturing and information-based quaternary industry - Ex: Silicon Valley (SoCal), Portland (Oregon), L.A., Boston, NC, etc.
