The location of service industries

Abstract

Service sector is formally and statistically made up of a wide group of industries and important differences do exist among service activities and the type of firms. Airlines companies, hypermarkets, taxi services or industrial cleaning companies have almost exclusively in common that they produce specific services demanded or used by individuals, households and all type of firms. This heterogeneity implies, among other things, that the location of firms is characterized by a high diversity of possibilities. The main objective of this chapter is to provide a general outlook of some of the theories on the location of services, trying also to establish the most decisive factors for about the location of different types of services. After summarizing the old and new theories, the location trends of some specific activities—retailing, hotels and catering, business services and KIBS—are also analyzed on the basis of the most recent researches. Intra-urban and inter-urban aspects are also considered, as well as the specific case of capital cities.