Effects of Geographical Scale on Location Decisions in Manufacturing: The Atlanta Example

Manufacturing plants have different locational requirements and characteristics based on whether their locational decision primarily involved a spatial search at the national, regional, or local level. The analysis is derived from questionnaire data for the fifteen-county Atlanta, Georgia, metropolitan area. Nationally oriented plants are larger, more recently established, and more likely to be branch plants, and are more strongly represented in types of manufacturing in which the South has recognized locational advantages. Plants locating as a result of national searches obtain materials from a greater distance and serve wider markets.