ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how employment in a town's service industries is governed by its size and degree of hinterland influence. Manufacturing in local economies is related eventually to the national patterns of growth and decline industries. One criticism of using the orders of the Standard Industrial Classification is that they are too coarse a measure of the industries in question. In manufacturing, the region may be taken as a realistic unit because a single centre dominates the rest. The key to the dynamic organisation of the region is the nature and varying strengths of the linkages within it, and an important characteristic of the systems of movement to work. As the regional patterns are not simply small-scale versions of the national forms, but demonstrate their own significant linkage characteristics and momentum for change.
