Chapter 9 Vocabulary

Brownfield Site

"A former industrial or commercial site that is under-used, vacant, or abandoned where there is the potential for environmental contamination."

Satisficing Location

"A less-than-ideal best location, but one providing an acceptable level of utility or satisfaction."

New International Division of Labor (NIDL)

"A spatial rearrangement of production in which developing countries capture more of the world's manufacturing activity while developed countries shift to services."

Uniform Isotropic Plain

"An area is completely uniform physically, politically, culturally, and technologically."

Producer Services

"Are performed for corporations and include finance, insurance, real estate, legal services, accounting, architecture, and engineering consulting services."

Consumer Services

"Are performed for individuals and include entertainment, tourism, restaurants, hotels, bars, maintenance services, education, health care, and the vast array of personal services."

Fordism

"Assembly-line work that breaks the production process into many repetitive, low-skill tasks in order to produce large quantities of identical commodities for mass markets."

External Economies

"Benefits that firms enjoy due to factors outside the firm."

Ubiquitous Industries

"Certain producers are, in fact, inseparable form the immediate markets that they serve and are so widely distributed... Newspaper publishing, bakeries and dairies, all of which produce a highly perishable commodity designed for immediate consumption, are examples."

Freight Rates

"Charges made for loading, transporting, and unloading of goods."

Outsourcing

"Come to mean subcontracting production and service sector work to outside (often nonunion) domestic companies."

Tertiary Activities

"Consist of business and labor specialties that provide services to the primary and secondary sectors, tot he general community, and to individuals. They provide intangible products ranging form education to haircuts, rather than tangible commodities such as finished goods."

Comparative Advantage

"Extends the capitalist division of labor from individual workers to the economies of entire regions and countries...Asserts that areas and countries can best improve their economies and living standards through specialization and trade." (Justification for free trade)

Locational Interdependence

"First, the locational controls for services depend on the locations of both customers and competitors and, under one set of conditions, may produce a clustered pattern and under another set, a dispersed pattern. Second, the Hotelling model suggests that a location solution that optimizes revenue for sellers may not be optimal from the point of view of the customers." (Ice cream example at the beach)

Secondary Activities

"Involve transforming raw materials into usable products, from pouring iron and steel to stamping out plastic toys, assembling computer components, or sewing jeans. The application of power and specialized labor to the production of finished products in factory settings: in short, industrialization."

Weberian Analysis

"It explains the optimum location of a manufacturing establishment based on minimizing three expenses: transport costs, labor costs, and agglomeration costs." (Alfred Weber)

Market Equilibrium

"Marked by the price at which supply equals demand, satisfying the needs of consumers and the profit motivation of suppliers."

Footloose

"Neither resource- nor market-oriented. For example, both the raw materials and the finished product in the manufacture of computers are so valuable, light, and compact that transportation costs have little bearing on where production takes place."

Transnational Corporations (TNCs)

"Private firms that have established branch operations in foreign nations."

Substitution Principle

"Recognizes that in many industrial processes it is possible to replace a declining amount of one input with and increase in another or to increase transportation costs while simultaneously reducing land rent."

Maquiladoras

"Sister" plants. "Within 20 kilometers of the U.S. order for the duty-free assembly of products destined for re-export."

Break-of-Bulk Points

"Sites where goods have to be transferred or transshipped from one carrier to another-at ports, for example, where barge or ocean vessel must be unloaded and cargo reloaded to railcar or truck, or between railroad and truck line."

Least-Cost Theory

"Sometimes called Weberian Analysis. It explains the optimum location of a manufacturing establishment based on minimizing three expenses: transport costs, labor costs, and agglomeration costs."

Commodity Chains

"Steps in the production and distribution process," "The set of activities involved in the production of a single good or service. Encompasses the relationships between buyers and suppliers and the flows of materials, finance, and knowledge."

Infrastructure

"The basic structure of services, installations, and facilities needed to support industrial, agricultural, and other economic activity, including transportation and communication, along with water, power, and other utilities."

Terminal Costs

"The charges for paperwork, loading, packing, and unloading of a shipment."

Deindustrialization

"The declining relative share of manufacturing in a nation's economy."

Multiplier Effect

"The direct, indirect, and induced consequences of change in an activity." "Each new firm added to the agglomeration will lead to the further development of infrastructure and linkages."

Line-Haul Costs

"The expenses for the actual movement of commodities once they have been loaded."

Spatial Margin of Profitability

"The larger area within which profitable operation is possible."

Offshoring

"The practice of either hiring foreign workers or, commonly, contracting with a foreign third-party service provider to take over and run particular business and processes or operations, such as call center or accounting, billing, and similar nonproduction "back-office" aspects of manufacturing."

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)

"The purchase or construction of factories and other fixed assets by TNCs- has been a significant engine of globalization."

Market Orientation

"The tendency of an economic activity to locate close to its market; a reflection of large and variable costs of transporting finished products."

Material Orientation

"The tendency of an economic activity to locate near or at its source of raw material; this is experienced when the costs of transporting materials are highly variable spatially and or represent a significant share of total costs."

Spatially Fixed Costs

"They are relatively unaffected no matter where the industry is located within a regional or national setting... do not give any location an advantage over others."

Spatially Variable Costs

"They show significant differences from place to places. These will influence locational choices."

Deglomeration

"When the costs of aggregation exceed the benefits, a firm will actually profit by relocating to a more isolated position."

Agglomeration Economies

forms of external economies; that is, benefits that firms enjoy due to factors outside the firm

Agglomeration

the clustering of productive activities and people for mutual advantage