This is particularly evident in regard to the flow of trade, when homogeneous and nodal regions are compared. The usual basis for a homogeneous region is a common exportable output: The whole region is a surplus supply area for such an output, and consequently its various parts have little or no reason to trade extensively with one another.
Typically, there is a single main nucleus the principal city of the region , perhaps some subordinate centers, and the rural remainder of the territory. These two or three specialized parts of the organism complement one another and are linked by internal transfer media. Our main concern in this chapter is with functional regions and, in particular, nodal regions.
We shall begin by presenting a simple example of the kind of statistical analysis often used to identify functional regions. These relationships will provide a basis for explorations in later chapters as to 1 how regions develop and acquire their distinctive characteristics; and 2 how a region interacts with other areas in terms of trade, investment, migration, and other flows and influences.
As mentioned above, movements of goods and services, people and money flows, and the frequency of telephone calls are among the best indicators of functional integration.
For this reason, empirical studies rely on these measures in efforts to delimit regions. Table presents hypothetical data on dollar values of trade flows during a year among six areas, which might be thought of as counties of a state or other subareas of a larger whole. The numbers shown give a picture of economic interdependence among the six areas as measured in this single dimension trade. Our task is to group these areas into functional regions in such a way that trade flows among areas within each region are relatively strong, while flows between regions are relatively weak.
Clearly we should not group areas together simply on the basis of the absolute amount of trade between them. The standardized linkages for the present example are shown in Table Note that it is necessary to present only one such linkage for each pair of areas, since L mn is equivalent to L nm. The linkages in Table can be used to group the six areas into regions. The five largest Ls fully characterize the strength of trade interactions among the six areas.
Areas 6 and 2 are joined at a linkage of. Similarly, the branch associated with area 4 is connected with areas 6 and 2 at a linkage of. Continuing in this manner, we find that the branches of areas 5 and 1 are joined at a linkage of.
The data reveal two groups of areas that fit the definition of a functional region. The linkages among areas 6, 2, and 4 and those among areas 5, 1, and 3 are relatively strong; each group constitutes a region.
Further, we find that these regions are joined at a linkage of. Thus we have relatively strong linkages among members of each region, but the linkage among regions is somewhat weaker. One characteristic of the clusters identified by this grouping method is that not all areas within a given region need have strong pairwise linkages. Not all clustering techniques have this characteristic. More restrictive groupings based on the strength of all pairwise linkages can be applied.
This example has served to illustrate the application of a particularly simple grouping method that can be used to delimit regions, given data on trade, money, migration, or commuting flows among a set of areas.
While the previous section focused on the analysis of trade flows, functional integration really depends on a variety of complex interdependencies. A simple classification of relationships will be helpful here. We shall consider separately 1 vertical relationships, 2 horizontal relationships, and 3 complementary relationships. As has been brought out in previous discussion, the locational relation between two activities can involve either mutual attraction sometimes called a positive linkage or mutual repulsion.
Thus vertical linkages normally imply mutual attraction. Rarely, however, is such attraction equal in both directions. We can distinguish between cases in which the linkage is predominantly "backward" and cases in which it is predominantly "forward. Backward linkage means that the mutual attraction is important mainly to the supplying activity.
In other words, a market-oriented activity is attracted by the presence of an activity to which it can sell. This is called backward linkage because it involves transmission of an effect to an activity further back in the sequence of operations that transforms such primary inputs as natural resources and labor into products for final consumption.
An example of backward linkage is the case of a Pittsburgh printing firm specializing in the production of annual reports for large corporations. In a number of large corporations with national headquarters in Pittsburgh were merged into firms with headquarters in other cities, so that Pittsburgh lost its position as the third-largest center of corporate headquarters activity.
As a result, the printing firm is reported to have lost a number of its larger contracts. Corporations prefer to have their annual reports printed locally if possible in other words, the business of printing annual reports is rather closely oriented to corporate headquarters locations. Backward linkage is extremely common because so much of the activity in any region is, in fact, producing for and oriented to the regional market. The larger the region in terms of total area, population..
The residentiary activities in a region including nearly all retail and most wholesale trade, most consumer and business services, local government services, public utilities, construction, and the manufacturing of such perishable or bulky products as ice cream, bread, newspapers, soft drinks, gravel, and cement blocks are likely to be stimulated by any increase in aggregate regional employment and income, and thus are the recipient of backward linkage effects.
Forward linkage means that an impact of change is transmitted to an activity further along in the sequence of operations. The activity affected by a forward linkage must be locationally sensitive to the price or supply of its inputs that is, input-oriented. One class of forward linkage involves activities that use by-products of other activities in the same region: for example, glue or fertilizer factories or tanneries in areas where there is a large amount of activity in fish canning, freezing, or meat packing.
The presence of steel rolling and finishing facilities is usually regarded as a significant factor in the choice of location for heavy metal-fabricating industries, since it means cheaper steel and probably quicker service. The importance of a good local supply of business services for regional growth, and particularly for the establishment of new lines of activity in a region, has become increasingly recognized in recent years.
In all these situations, forward linkages are the key factors. The role of horizontal relationships has already been discussed in some detail in Chapter 4.
These relationships involve the competition of activities, or units of activity, for either markets or inputs. The locational effect is basically one of mutual repulsion, in contrast to the mutual attraction implied in vertical linkages. Particularly significant for regional growth and development is the rivalry of different activities for scarce and not easily expansible local resources such as particular varieties of labor, sites on riverbanks or with a view, clean and cool water, or clean air.
The entrance of a new activity using such local resources tends to raise their costs and may thus hamper or even preclude other activities requiring the same resources. The region as a whole has much at stake in this rivalry. Again, should regional efforts to enhance employment opportunities take the form of trying to attract new activities with the largest number of jobs, regardless of character, or should priority be given to new activities that pay high wages, provide opportunities for individual learning and advancement, and attract a superior grade of in-migrants?
How much smoke is the community willing to tolerate for the sake of the income earned by the smoke producers and the taxes they pay? These are all familiar issues that must be faced by citizens, responsible authorities, and planners of a city or larger region; and they all arise because of horizontal linkage in the form of competition for scarce local resources. Regional objectives and policy are the subject of Chapter We have already noted, in previous chapters, complementary relationships among activities in a region, particularly in connection with external economies in Chapter 5.
Examples of this attraction are found in fashion goods and other shopping goods industries. The manufacture of sportswear in some large cities in California and Texas in recent years has developed largely on this basis. This is really a two-step linkage, which can be broken down into 1 a forward linkage effect, whereby the coming of an additional producer attracts to the region more buyers of the product, and 2 a backward linkage effect, whereby the greater demand from those buyers enhances the attractiveness of the region for still more producers.
Such effects are, however, not entirely restricted to shopping goods. Still another example from the Pittsburgh region is pertinent here.
In the s, various civic leaders urged Pittsburgh to aim for major league status as a designer and producer of urban transit systems to meet the projected growing demand from large urban areas in the United States and other countries.
A wide variety of inputs is needed to feed into this line of activity: the manufacture of components and supplies, designers knowledgeable in transport technology and urban planning, urban and regional economists, and specialized research facilities and consultants.
Had the main effort been successful and had Pittsburgh firms received more orders for transit systems, local suppliers of the various inputs cited above would have flourished and multiplied, and their availability and expertise would have enhanced further the capabilities and reputation of the prime contractors.
This second kind of complementary linkage also with an effect of mutual locational attraction is basically the converse of the complementary linkage just discussed. Many activities perhaps most turn out not one but several different products, those of lesser importance or value being called by-products. All three of the activities are then in a situation of mutual assistance and attraction. There are many examples of this effect in the chemical industries, which by their nature usually turn out combinations of products.
Producers of coke for blast furnaces also turn out gas and a variety of hydrocarbon chemicals that can serve as building blocks for a still wider range of products, such as synthetic rubber, synthetic gasoline, dyestuffs, and pharmaceuticals. The presence in the same region of industries using any of the first-stage outputs of the coal distillation process enhances the returns of the coke producer and may even be a significant factor in its decisions to expand or relocate.
If it does expand output, this means a still larger and perhaps cheaper and more dependable regional supply of other coal distillation products, which in turn makes the region more attractive as a location for industries using these products. Like the complementary linkage among sellers of jointly demanded products, discussed earlier, this complementary linkage can be broken down into two separate links.
A functional region is made up of a specific location and area surrounding it. Areas containing a kind of service, such as cable television, or points on a map that are a terminal for an activity, such as travel or communication via telephone can also be named as functional regions. A formal region is an area identified by a political and social system and a functional system is an area, where we find a particular function taking place like for an example; electronic production, newspaper circulation etc.
Your email address will not be published. Comments very nice. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Formal Region. Functional Region. Has specific boundaries that set them apart from other regions in the world.
Areas organized around a node or focal point. In comparison, a uniform region is a territory with one or more features present throughout and absent or unimportant elsewhere. A uniform region may represent some characterization of the total environment of an area, including both its physical and cultural features. It is this type of region that we use for the general structure of this book.
Our perception of the nature of a region, of the things that together shape its personality, is based on a relatively small group of criteria. In each major section of the United States, we have tried to identify the one or two underlying themes that reflect ways in which the population has interacted within itself or with the physical environment to create a distinctive region.
The most important identifying themes for a region may vary greatly from one region to another. It is impossible to speak of the American Southwest without a focus on aridity and water erosion, of the North without its cold winters, or of the Northeast without cities and manufacturing.
The key element that establishes a total uniform region, then, is not how that section compares with others on a predetermined set of variables, but how a certain set of conditions blend there.
This scheme has resulted in our division of the United States into 14 regions Map 1: 35K , each of which is discussed in its own chapter.
Within this book, regions have been presented largely as though they are distinct territorially, even though they are not. The "feeling" of a region we wish to present is a function of place, but it is also a function of the subject theme chosen. Therefore, for example, the intense urban character of Megalopolis is discussed in chapter 4, but the aspects of manufacturing that affect New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and other manufacturing core cites that comprise Megalopolis are presented in chapter 5.
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