•
a. Resources such as coal, iron ore, large labor force b. Technology: skilled mechanics and new inventions c. Economic conditions: overseas trade, colonies, increased capital and demand for goods d. Political/Social conditions: stable gov’t, strong navy, colonies for raw materials e. Physical geography: long coastlines &natural harbors provided for easy transportation

Figure 11-2

Figure 11-3

Figure 11-4

United Kingdom: dominated steel & textiles during 19 th century; today the UK has attracted international investment through new high-tech industries that serve the European market
Rhine-Ruhr Valley: iron & steel manufacturing b/c near coal fields; Rotterdam (world’s largest port)
Mid-Rhine: centrally located in Europe
Frankfurt- financial & commercial center
Stuttgart- specializes in high-value goods that require skilled labor
Mannheim- inland port on Rhine where lg. chemical industry manufacturing synthetic fibers, dyes, and pharmaceuticals

Figure 11-5

New England: cotton textiles in 19 th century w/ cotton imported from south & then shipped to Europe
Middle Atlantic: largest U.S. market, attracts industries that need lg. # of consumers & depends on foreign trade
Mohawk Valley: upper NY state, advantage of inexpensive electricity from Niagara Falls
Pittsburgh-Lake Erie: leader in steel during 19 th ore century b/c of proximity to coal & iron
Western Great Lakes: centered in Chicago, hub of transportation network & center of steel production
Southern CA: largest area of clothing & textile production, 2 nd for furniture, & major food processing center
Southeastern Ontario: most important center for Canada

Japan: became industrial power in 1950s-60s, manufacturing concentrated in central region btw. Tokyo and Nagasaki
China: world’s largest supply of low-cost labor & world’s largest market for many consumer goods
3 areas of manufacturing: Guangdong and Hong Kong,
Yangtze River valley btw. Shanghai and Wuhan, along
Gulf of Bo Hai from Tianjin and Beijing to Shenyang
South Korea: focuses on export-oriented manufacturing, leading producer of ocean-going ships, manufacturing centered along rim of country btw. Seoul (capital) and Busan (largest port)

-Geographers try to explain why one location may prove more profitable for a factory than other
-A company looks at 2 geographic costs:
a. Situation factors: involve transporting materials to & from a factory
-a firm seeks to find a location that minimizes the cost of transporting inputs to the factory & finished goods to the consumer b. Site factors: results from the unique characteristics of a location (labor, land, & capital)

• Manufacturers buy from companies & individuals who supply input (minerals, materials, energy, machinery, & supporting services)
• The farther something is transported the higher the cost so manufacturers try to locate its factories as close as possible to its inputs & markets
– Proximity to inputs: optimal location of factory is close as possible to input if cost of transporting raw materials to factory is GREATER THAN the cost of transporting the product to consumers
– Proximity to markets: optimal location of factory is as close as possible to customers if the cost of transporting raw materials to the factory is LESS THAN the cost of transporting the product to consumers

• Inputs may be from the physical environment like minerals or they may be parts or materials made by other companies
• Industry where inputs weigh more than the final product is called a bulk-reducing industry
– to minimize costs they locate near source of inputs
– Starts out heavy & gets lighter or easier to transport
– Minerals are especially important inputs for many industries (iron ore, tin, nickel, chromium, copper, lead, magnesium, zinc, etc.
• China leading producer of tin, tungsten, lead, magnesium, zinc
• U.S. leading producer of Molybdenum
• Australia leading producer of nickel, titanium, lead, lithium
– Ex. of bulk-reducing industry:
• Paper mills are close to timber or wine makers close to vineyards

• Proximity to markets is critical for 3 types of markets: bulk-gaining, single-market manufacturers, & perishable products
• Bulk-gaining industry: makes something that gains volume or weight during production (starts out light but gets heavier or harder to transport)
– Want to locate near where products are sold to reduce transportation costs
– Ex. fabrication of parts & machinery from steel or other metals such as microwaves, TVs, refrigerators,
& air conditioners
– Ex. bottled beverages, potato chips, bread, water

•
– Ex. producer of buttons, zippers, pins, or makers of parts for motor vehicles
•
– Ex. food producer like bakers, milk bottlers, daily newspapers

The farther something is transported, sometimes results in lower costs per km or mile b/c of things like labor costs, storage costs, etc.
– Trucks most used for short distances (1 day or less), can load/unload quickly
– Trains for longer distances b/c no stops needed but longer to load
– Ships for long distances b/c cost per km is very low
– Air is most expensive; usually used for speedy delivery of small bulk, high quality packages

• Ship, rail, truck, or air?
– The farther something is transported, the lower the cost per km/mile
– Cost decreases at different rates for each of the four modes
• Truck = most often for short-distance travel
• Train = used to ship longer distances (1 day +)
• Ship = slow, but very low cost per km/mile
• Air = most expensive, but very fast
• Break of Bulk Point – location where transfer among transportation modes is possible
• Many times modes are mixed
-Containerization has helped facilitate w/ transfer of packages btw. modes
• Seaports and Airports
• Companies that use multiple transport modes locate at a break of bulk point

•
– Mining, concentration, smelting, then refining
– 1 st 3 steps are bulk-reducing b/c of weight of mineral so the industries want to be near the input (largest area is in AZ)
– 4 th step of refining and manufacturing are located near markets on the E. & W. Coast

• Example of bulk-reducing industry
• Situation factors have changed distribution of steel mills with
U.S. & worldwide
– Mid 19 th century-SW PA
– Late 19 th century- Lake Erie b/c of discovery of iron ore
– Early 20 th century- Southern Lake Michigan b/c of shift to minimize transportation costs
– Mid 20 th century- E. & W. Coast b/c iron ore started coming from foreign markets
– Late 20 th century- Proximity to markets due to shift from steel mills to minimills using scrap metal b/c this input is widely available
• Shift from steel mills in MDC to LDC over the last 30 yrs., mainly China, India, & S. Korea

• Bulk-gaining industry
• 3 major industrial regions house 80% of world’s final assembly production (40%
E. Asia, 25% Europe, & 15% N. America)
• 10 carmakers control 85% of world’s sales
– 2 in N. America: Ford & GM
– 4 in Europe: Germany’s Volkswagen, Italy’s Fiat (which controls Chrysler),
France’s Renault (controls Nissan), & Peugeot
– 4 in E. Asia: Japan’s Toyota, Honda & Suzuki and S. Korea’s Hyundai
• Carmakers’ assembly plants account for only around 30% of the value of the vehicle, while independent parts makers supply other 70%
• Many parts makers considered single-market manufacturers & cluster near final assembly plant
• Regional Distribution:
– N.America: Auto Alley btw. Michigan & Alabama, especially Detroit, MI
– Europe: east-west corridor btw. UK & Russia, E. Europe is growing
– E. Asia: China’s plant near east coast

• Labor
– The most important site factor
– Labor-intensive industries: industry where wages & other compensation paid to employees constitute high % of expenses
• China has ¼ of world’s manufacturing workers, India 1/5
• Examples: motor-vehicle workers are paid much higher hourly wages than textiles workers, yet textile industry is labor intensive, & auto industry is not
– Textile and apparel spinning (labor intensive so primarily done in lowwage countries) Ex. China produces 2/3 world’s cotton thread
– Textile and apparel weaving (labor intensive)
– Textile and apparel assembly (located primarily in MDCs)
• Land
– Rural sites (more land available for one-story buildings)
– Environmental factors
– Access to transportation routes in suburbs or rural areas
• Capital: location near banks or financial institutions that will invest or lend $

Weber’s Model
Manufacturing plants will locate where costs of transportation, labor, and agglomeration are the least
Theory: Least Cost
Theory
Hotelling’s Model
Location of an industry cannot be understood without reference to other industries of the same kind
Theory: Locational
Interdependence
Losch’s Model
Manufacturing plants choose locations where they can maximize profit
Theory: Zone of
Profitability

• Alfred Weber, (1868-1958) a German economists, published
Theory of the Location of Industries in 1909. His theory was the industrial equivalent of the Von Thunen Model.
• Manufacturing plants will locate where costs are the least.
• Takes into account :
– Transportation: need to weigh cost of moving raw materials & finished products to market
– Labor: cheap labor may help to balance high transportation costs
– Agglomeration: clustering of similar businesses that share resources
• Ex. RTP & Silicon Valley for high-tech, Cities of Milan or
Paris for fashion, LA for motion picture production

• Traffic, pollution, full waste dumps
• High rent and taxes
• Labor shortages and turmoil

Try to be centered to the cost of all 3

•
•
– suggests that business owners can juggle expenses, as long as labor, land rents, transportation, & other costs don’t go up all at once
– you can substitute the high costs of one or two things (ex. land rents, transportation, etc.) for a really low cost of another ( ex. labor)

– Locational interdependence – the location of industries can’t be understood w/o ref. to the location of other industries of like kind
– Two vendors located on pts. A & C, eventually gravitate toward pt. B (moving from this pt. will only hurt profitability)
– A third vendor complicates this (spatially)

• Changes within Developed Regions:
– Industry is shifting away from traditional manufacturing regions in NW Europe and NE USA
– Shift in industry from NE to South and West in USA
• NY and PA lost jobs in textile, steel, clothing, & fabricated metal manufacturing
• CA & TX had largest increases in manufacturing jobs
• What brought about the shift?
– TVA brought electricity to rural south
– Construction of roads
– Air-conditioning
– Right to Work Laws

• Shifts in Manufacturing: USA
– Textile production (located primarily in SE like the
Appalachian, Piedmont, & Ozark mountains; SC, NC, AL, GA)
– NC large producer of hosiery & socks

• Automobiles (Ford, Gm, Chrysler- Detroit), foreign automakers assemble cars here as well
• Airplanes (Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, Seattle)
Commercial and military
• Pharmaceuticals (drugs)
• Entertainment (Music Movies- Hollywood)
• Computer software (Silicon Valley & RTP)
– ex. TECHNIPOLES (An area planned for high technology with agglomeration built on a synergy among technological companies)
• Military weapons

• Shifts in Manufacturing: Europe
– Change from NW to S & E
– European gov’t policies have encouraged this relocation
– EU Structural Funds provide assistance to areas called convergence regions
& competitive and employment regions
• Convergence regions primarily in E & S where income in lower
• Competitive & Employment regions primary in W. Europe’s traditional core industrial areas where manufacturing has decreased
– Spain had most rapid growth especially in motor vehicle industry
• Major industry region is in Catalonia (motor vehicle & textile industry)
– Since the fall of communism in E. Europe many countries have had much industrial development (ex. Hungary, Czech Republic, & Poland)
– Central Europe has a combination of both site and situation factors that draw in manufacturing
• Labor
• Market proximity

• Emerging Industrial Regions:
– Labor is biggest site factor influencing development in LDCs
• Manufacturers are moving to where there are lower wage rates
• Labor-intensive industries are moving to LDCs
• Ex. Shift from apparel being made in USA declined dramatically from
1990 to 2010
– Outsourcing: turning over much of responsibility of production to independent suppliers
• Transnational corp. outsource jobs to remain competitive in the global economy
• Identify areas where they can outsource jobs and at the same time keep factories/jobs that require highly skilled workers in MDCs (called new
international division of labor)
• Outsourcing is different from traditional mass production of vertical
integration (a company controls all phases of production)
• Ex. Car parts, iPhone

Outer rings: later and poorer
Fashion Stores
(Gucci, Polo):
1,2
Department Stores
(Aeropostle, Gap):
2,3,4
Mass Merchandisers
(Sears, JC Penney):
2,3,4
Discount Stores
(Wal-Mart, Target):
3,4,5
Small Importers
4,5

• North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement
– Eliminates most barriers, such as tariffs, to moving goods among Mexico, USA,
& Canada
– Mexico attracts labor-intensive industries & manufacturing has increased since
1994
– Plants in Mexico near U.S. border are known as maquiladoras
• under U.S. & Mexican laws, companies receive tax breaks if they ship materials from the U.S., assemble components at a maquiladoras plant in
Mexico, & export the finished product back to the U.S.
– Fears of U.S. & Canadians:
• Shift of industries such as textile & food processing to Mexico b/c of lower wages & less stringent laws regarding air & water quality
– Fears of Mexico:
• Jobs are being lost to LDCs that have lower wage rates
• Situation factors do give Mexico a competitive edge

•
– Countries expected to dominate global manufacturing in 21 st century
– Currently control 1/6 of world GDP
– China is 2 nd , Brazil 7 th , Russia 9 th , India 11 th
– China & India have largest labor force, while
Russia & Brazil have large amounts of inputs critical for industry
– S. Africa joined meeting w/ other 4 emerging countries in 2010 (now BRICS)
– Indonesia & Nigeria are expected to rise as well

•
– State-planned
– Focus on:
• Northeast district
• Shanghai and Chang district
•
– Companies that bring production (not the whole company)
– Advantages
• Chinese labor
• Special economic zones (SEZs)

Left-Chinese industrial air conditioner plant
Right-Singapore container port

• Shanghai recently beat out
Rotterdam as the busiest port in the world.
• China has many jobs that are outsourced or moved offshore.
• Northeast is China ’ s rust belt with many state-run inefficient factories.
• Dalian, Shanghai, Zhuhai,
Xiamen & Shenzhen- smogchoked cities jammed with people-rapidly changing with new construction & renewal

• The Bihar Steel Mill in India produces high quality steel at a low price-the down side-low pay, few environmental restrictions=pollution.
• India ’ s service sector is also growing very rapidly.
• The Delhi Call Center at right is typical of the the outsourcing done by many Western firms.
• India has millions of low paid blue-collar workers and millions of white collar, high tech. workers

• 2 locations factors influence industries to stay in traditional
regions: availability of skilled workers & rapid delivery to markets
– Ex. Computer manufacturing & clothing industry (NY, CA)
• Fordist : Dominant mode of mass production during the 20 th century w/ production of consumer goods at a single site
• Post-Fordist : Current mode of production w/ more flexible production practices
– Goods not mass produced
– Production accelerated and dispersed around the globe
– Multinational companies that shift production, outsourcing it around the world
– 4 types of work rules: teams, problem solving, leveling, productivity

• Improvements in transportation and communications technologies
• Many places in the world more connected than ever before

• Just-in-time delivery
– Keeping just what is needed for short-term production
– New parts shipped quickly when needed
– Limits unnecessary stock & storage space is compressed which saves $
– Industry is located near consumer (ex. car parts near assembly plants)
– Disruptions w/ just-in-time delivery:
– Labor unrest, traffic, natural disasters

Hartford Detroit
Pittsburgh

• Deindustrialization
– A process by which companies move industrial jobs to other regions with cheaper labor
– Reinvestment in higher profit areas
• Sunbelt states (non-union)
• Semi-periphery and Periphery
– Period of high unemployment in deindustrialized region
– Goal: Switch to a service economy (tertiary, quaternary and quinary)
• Newly industrialized regions
– Pro–free trade laws
– Lax environmental regulations

Problems w/ Deindustrialization:
•Has left older industrial cities struggling to find their economic niche.
•Older industrial cities haven ’ t fully transitioned from an industrial economy to an innovative, entrepreneurial one.
•This economic shift began with companies fleeing older industrial cities for their suburbs.
•Decreasing transport costs, low-cost land, and the search for lower-skilled, lower-cost workers took companies south and west.
•More companies are moving labor-intensive operations out of the country, taking advantage of low-cost workers and reduced regulation.

• Problems w/ Deindustrialization:
•Long-term legacy costs of the industrial economy continue to hamper the recovery of older industrial cities.
•The dominance of older established industries can hinder entrepreneurialism and diversification.
•Lower levels of educational attainment put these cities at a disadvantage in the competition for new firms.
•Many are left with a tremendous environmental legacy: there are an estimated 5 million acres of abandoned industrial sites and contaminated brownfields (abandoned or underused industrial property) in U.S. cities alone.

•Older industrial cities have numerous assets that set them apart.
•Cultural assets: cultural institutions, Professional sports teams, vibrant street life.
•Economic assets: regional employment centers, downtown cores, concentrations of universities and medical industry.
•Physical assets: waterfronts, transit infrastructure, historic buildings.

• Correlation: as a country’s per capita income increases so does pollution
– Exception: some European countries
• Air pollution:
– Mostly generated from factories, power plants, & motor vehicles b/c of burning of fossil fuels
– Human use of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) such as Freon used in refrigerators & air conditioners
– Global implications: global warming & greenhouse effect
– Effects: increase water temp. causing increased bacterial growth & killing species, melting polar ice caps causing flooding, changes in precipitation patterns, depletion of ozone layer
– What is being done?
• Countries agreed by 2020 to stop using CFCs in MDCs and by 2030 in LCDs

– Regional scale: Air pollution
• Acid rain (in USA the 3 major industrial regions greatly affected)
– Generated in Ohio and other industrial states along southern Great
Lakes
– Most effected is East Coast
– Local scale: urban areas
• Lg. # of factories, motor vehicles, & pollutants from high # of residents
• Increase in Carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons which causes photochemical smog, particulates (dust & smoke particles)
– Most polluted cities: Iran, Pakistan, India, China
– What is being done?
• Laws in MDCs are controlling emissions
– Ex. U.S. require catalytic converters on motor vehicles

• Solid Waste:
– About 4 pounds of waste per person is generated each day in the
U.S.
– Paper products account for largest percentage
– Landfills: most common way to dispose of waste
– Alternative to landfills is incineration: burning trash reduces its bulk by ¾ & can generate energy by producing steam heat from the incinerator
• Hazardous Waste:
– Includes heavy metals like mercury, cadmium, & zinc, cyanides, acids,
PCBs, etc. usually generated from unwanted by-products of manufacturing
– Mining is largest polluters
– Can cause cancer, mutations, chronic ailments, or death if not disposed of properly

• Industries use lots of water
– Ex. aluminum industry locate near dams to use the cheap hydroelectricity to
(Alcoa is largest producer of aluminum)
• Sources of water pollution
– Point-source pollution: enters at a specific location
• Usually smaller in quantity & easier to control
• 2 main point sources are water-using manufacturing & municipal sewage systems
– Manufacturers of steel, chemicals, food processing
– Water sewage systems are rare in LDCs & wastes from farms, factories,
& residents can pollute the water causing diseases like cholera, typhoid, & dysentery
– Nonpoint source pollution: comes from a lg. diffuse area
• Higher quantities & harder to control
• Biggest contributor: agriculture
• Aral Sea

•
– BP Oil Spill 2010
– Chernobyl 1986
– Japan’s nuclear disaster at Fukushima in 2011