ABSTRACT

In 1992 Meric Gertler coined the term ‘forgotten sectors’ to draw attention to the fact that economic geographers were largely ignoring important changes occurring outside the manufacturing arena. This ‘manufacturing bias’ is now showing signs of waning. Several excellent reviews of service industry trends, locational dynamics, and related theoretical issues have emerged in the literature in recent years (Christopherson 1989; Christopherson and Noyelle 1992; P.Wood 1991a and 1991b; Daniels 1991; Allen 1992; Begg 1993; Coffey 1995). While this body of work is quite diverse in content, one common theme to emerge is that geographers need to adopt a more ‘services informed’ view of current economic and societal change (Marshall and Wood 1992:1,264). Such a view must, in part, be based on a thorough understanding of the patterns of production organization and labour utilization that characterize tertiary activities. At the same time, there is a need to look more closely at how services are represented in studies of regional economic restructuring and, in particular, how their relationship to other sectors of the economy, including manufacturing, is evolving (Urry 1987; Townsend 1991; The Economist 1993a; Milne et al. 1994).