ABSTRACT
An exploration of the rationale for the emergence of the service sector, and of the broad characteristics of the changes within it, and some of the explanations for these changes provides a necessary context for the remainder of the book. We now turn to the theories used to account for location and spatial distribution of services, beginning with the central place model and moving on (in Chapter 5) to extensions of this model and some other approaches to location modelling. Some reference has been made to the fact that many services cannot be stored and subsequently transferred to the point of consumption; there is often a substantial dependence on the provision of information, advice and expertise upon demand, and in infinitely variable contexts and complexity. This means that while manufacturing and service industries may have in common some factors of production such as labour, capital or land, others such as technology or knowledge are more central to services than to manufacturing.
