Ch. 12 Services

Key Issues 1-2

Warm Up

• Which form of transportation would most likely be used to haul fruit from Central America to markets in the US?

• A. truck• B. train• C. plane• D. pipeline• E. ship

Opening a New Macy’s

• If you were to open a new Macy’s department store, what would you have to consider?

• Use credit card info to determine zip codes of shoppers for existing Macy’s shoppers

• Find where 2/3 to ¾ of customers live.• How far are people willing to drive to Macy’s?• How many potential customers would you need?• What competition is there nearby (market share)?• What geographic tool would help you compile all of this info?

Services

• Examples?• Majority of workers in MDCs• Less than 10% of worker in LDCs• Creates regular patterns in MDCs• Located near settlements for proximity to market

Percent GDP from Services, 2005

Fig. 12-1: Services contribute over two-thirds of GDP in more developed countries, compared to less than one-half in less developed countries.

Every settlement provides consumer services to people in the surrounding market area/hinterland. However, settlements of different sizes have varied types and numbers of services.Examples – Rural vs. Urban, or MDC vs. LDC

Where are the Services?

Three Types of Services1) Consumer Services

• Retail and Wholesale• Education• Health• Leisure and Hospitality

2) Business Services• Financial • Professional• Transportation and Information

3) Public Services

Origin of Services

• Consumer Services– Burial, household services, skills and making supplies

• Public Services– Political leaders, defense of groups assets

• Business Services– Transportation, exchange with other groups, record keeping, currency

What would be a religious reason for the origin of settlements?

What would be a political reason for the origin of settlements?

Services in Contemporary Rural Settlements

• Clustered Rural Settlements—LDCs, majority of world, families live close together with fields surrounding

• Circular or Linear• Historically in US and Western Europe (colonies, French Long

Lots)

Most people in the world still live in clustered rural settlements today.

Most common in New England

Dispersed Rural Settlements

• Anglo America and United Kingdom—seen as more efficient• Enclosure Movement-UK 1750-1850 government consolidated

farms• Plantations• Cheap, plentiful land in US

Patterns of Consumer Services

• Central Place Theory• Market Area Analysis• Hierarchy of Services and Settlements

Central Place Theory• Central Place Theory is used to explain how the most profitable location

can be identified.• First proposed by German geographer Walter Christaller in the 1930’s

and later added to by other geographers in the 1950’s.• A central place is a market center for the exchange of goods and

services by people attracted from the surrounding area.• Central places compete against each other to serve as markets for goods

and services for the surrounding region thus creating a regular pattern of settlements.

Market Areas as Hexagons

Fig. 12-5: Hexagons are often used to delineate market areas because they are a compromise between circles, which have edges equidistant from the center but leave gaps, and squares, which don’t leave gaps but whose edges are not equidistant from the center. Why a hexagon??!?!

Central Place Theory• The area surrounding a service from which

customers are attracted is the market area or hinterland.

Range of a Service

• How far would you go for a grocery store? • A movie?• A concert?• A sports game?• The range is a maximum distance people are willing to go for a

service• For retail, 2/3 to ¾ of the customers

Central Place Theory• The market area of every service varies, thus

geographers need two pieces of information about a service – its range and its threshold.

• Range is the maximum distance people are willing to travel to use a service.– People are willing to only go a short distance for everyday

consumer services, such as a convenience store, but go a longer distance for specialty services such as a concert.

– Retailers typically define their range as the maximum distance that 3/4 ths of their customers are willing to travel.

– Range can be measured in miles, but most people measure in units of time. Thus, travel time can be different due to the “conditions” of the road and the time of day.

Threshold of a Service

• The minimum number of people needed to support the service is the threshold

• Depends on appeal of service (Convenience Stores vs. Chiropractors)

• Size of market• Income of market