Industrial Location

Geography 343

Winter Quarter, 2002

 

Instructor:     Dr. Robert South                                                                      Office:  400C Braunstein

Office Hours:  MWF 10:00AM – 12:00PM                                                  Phone:  556-3427

 

 

Industrial Location

(15-041-343)

Class Topics                                                                                                   Reading Assignments

 

   I.       Introduction to a geography of manufacturing,                                     Chapter 1

definition, and organization:

1.     ideographic - nomothetic

2.     neoclassical

3.     behavioral

4.     structural

-SIC classification

 

   II.      The evolution of manufacturing:                                                          Chapter 2

1.  historical perspectives, cottage industries-                                              

                industrial revolution   

2. Kondratieff cycles

3. Fordism, Post-Fordism

   (Planning systems – Mkt. System firms) 

 

  III.     The Geography of manufacturing:                                                       Chapter 3

1.  global scale – world trade

2.  national scale – the U.S.

          regional shifts in manufacturing

          intra-metropolitan

 

IV.      Location factors                                                                                    Chapter 4           

            materials, markets, transportation

            labor

            economics of scale

            energy

             infrastructure

            capital 

            land

            environment

            government

 

           & The Product Life Cycle, off-shore, the case of maquiladoras

 

V.       Location models                                                                                   Chapter 5

1.     Weber

2.     Hotelling

3.     spatial margins of profitability

 

VI.       Stages in the locational search,  location-behavioral approach          Chapter 6

            uncertainly                                                                                           pp 146-159

decision making, scale & spatial bias

location preferences of foreign firms

 

VII.      The multinational (MNC)                                                                    Chapter 7

1.     large firms

2.     hierarchical locations

            - branch plants

                        -corporate headquarters

-R & D

3.     the growth of MNC’s

 

VIII.     Market system firms (SME)                                                                Chapters 9, 10

1.     role of entrepreneurs

2.     regional variations  SME’s

3.     SME’s & local development

 

IX.       Corporate “relocation”                                                                       Chapter 12

1.     core firms & branch plants                                                            pp 291-308

2.     international search for “flexible” labor

 

X.        De-Industrialized Regions                                                                   Chapter 16

1.     Plant closure

2.     regional impacts (Roger & Me)

3.     post fordism rejuvenation (?)

 

 

Text: Hayter, Roger.  The Dynamics of Industrial Location (John Wiley & Sons) 1997

 

Course requirements:  Essays – students will be given a set of questions every three weeks.  Each set will contain approximately 4 questions.  Each essay question can be answered in two pages or less, and must be typed (double spaced).  From each set of questions, two essays will be handed in and graded; 6 essays, 50 points each = 300 points.

Exam – one exam, essay format.  The exam questions will be selected from the list of distributed questions = 100 points.

Total course points = 400