ABSTRACT
A central task in the study of producer services is to understand their intra-urban spatial distribution pattern and location-choice behavior. Within a city much of the spatial dynamics of producer services, along with other economic sectors, can be observed and depicted in the processes of concentration and dispersal. In the past half century, a continuous suburban dispersal of urban population, employment, manufacturing firms, and consumer services has occurred in cities in both developed and developing countries (Ingram 1998). At the same time, a new form of concentration, involving high-order producer services and head offices, emerged in the central cities as well as in the newly developed suburban centers in many developed countries (Stanback 1991; Hutton 2004). In this chapter, we examine the intra-urban location of producer services and compare the characteristics of producer service location with that of manufacturing and consumer services.
