ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses contribution on service industries in text devoted to progress in industrial geography. For some reason the latter is invariably equated with manufacturing and most of the textbooks in economic geography published to dispel this notion. Services, which include transport and communication, retail and wholesale distribution, insurance, banking, finance, business services, professional services, wide range of personal services and central and local government services, now account for some 75 per cent of non-agricultural employment in the United States and approximately 60 per cent in Britain. Local economic conditions, regional differences in the requirements of consumers, or variations in the willingness to invest, on the part of both retail and development companies, in different parts of the country are just some of the factors leading to these spatial variations in service provision. The location problem for service activities is not simply where to locate at the intra-urban level, there are also circumstances where an inter-urban location choice is necessary.
