Some relationships between manufacturing activity and the urban system: An exploratory study

Abstract It is shown that, using cross-sectional data, there are several important relationships between four manufacturing characteristics and both the size of an urban centre and its position in the national city system. The manufacturing characteristics are the proportion of the total work-force in manufacturing, the degree of specialisation (diversification) within the manufacturing sector, the plant size distribution and the extent to which different stages of the manufacturing process are represented within the city. The relationships shown in this exploratory study appear to be sufficiently strong to justify a detailed examination of the way they operate in a dynamic context and to encourage an investigation into the causal relationships underlying the spatial associations which are identified.