ABSTRACT
This chapter explores spatial consequence of the mobility of goods: the distribution centre. As part of the logistics chain, the distribution centre is a short-term dwelling place for goods that come in one container, are repackaged and recontainerized, and leave again within days. Rather than seeing the distribution center as a place constructed of multiple flows, the chapter proposes looking outward and seeing it as an example of a distributed place, occurring across multiple locations. The interface that the distribution center provides between global and regional or local networks appears most obviously in the local connections to rail and road networks. As a functioning place, the distribution centre exists across networks, territories, scales, places, fluids and more, in a way that its predecessor the warehouse did not. Finally, the chapter concludes by arguing that distributed places are a way to consider mobility and space together to take transportation more seriously as a subject of social science research.
