Industrial Suburbs

Suburbs are independently incorporated municipalities or districts on the fringes or outskirts of cities, and industrial or manufacturing suburbs are a special type. Historically, industrial suburbs were classified separately from manufacturing suburbs. According to Victor Jones, communities were classified as industrial rather than manufacturing if more than 30 percent of local jobs are in retail trades—making industrial communities more diversified than manufacturing communities. The terms are now used interchangeably as industrial suburbs have evolved and changed since World War II.

Today, industrial suburbs are specialized places of employment that feature manufacturing or industrial jobs. Thus, all suburbs in which 50 percent or more of the local jobs are in manufacturing or industry are classified as either industrial or manufacturing suburbs. This is so even if the percentage of workers employed in retail trade exceeds 30 percent of all local employment. In whatever combination, manufacturing institutions must provide the majority of the employment opportunities. Additionally, the value added to the local economy from adjusted manufacturing value of product sales must exceed that of total retail sales and banking and finance.

Industrial suburbs share the definitive characteristics of functional specialization in manufacturing. They are not residential or bedroom communities. Their very existence is based on the production of goods and commodities for wholesale distribution. These suburbs provide jobs for local and neighboring community residents—including nearby central cities. They are part of the metropolitan structure as a whole but are functionally differentiated and semi-independent of the larger central cities. Harlan Paul Douglass called them suburbs of production rather than suburbs of consumption or residential suburbs. Today, we simply call them manufacturing or industrial suburbs.

Although industrial suburbs are generally larger than residential suburbs, the size of industrial manufacturing enterprises is unimportant. There can be a mix of many small, medium, and large enterprises, or several large manufacturers and no medium or small enterprises, or only small enterprises. Traditionally, the basic enterprises in industrial suburbs have been auto assembly, petroleum refining and related industries, rubber and plastics, transportation equipment, chemicals and allied products, metals fabrication, and appliance and machinery manufacturing.

The quality of residential life in traditional industrial suburbs is secondary to manufacturing. Local government, education, and service industries are all focused on supporting the manufacturing interests. Residents tend to have comparable socioeconomic status to blue-collar, inner-city workers. The nature of traditional production creates an environment of pollution, foul air, acid rain, carcinogens, and other industrial wastes. Hence, fewer professionals, technical and kindred workers, managers, and proprietors reside in these communities. This results in a higher proportion of residents who rent rather than own their dwellings when industrial suburbs are compared to residential suburbs. Further, major shopping centers, with all of the attendant retail services, are usually located in cleaner, neighboring, more white-collar, middle-class communities.

In the past few decades, new, nontraditional, high tech communications and microchip manufacturing are changing the quality of life in industrial suburbs. A combination of suburban middle-class amenities and new technologies has resulted in the development of the novel high tech industrial parks that now typify the newer, cleaner industrial suburbs.

The new trend is toward specialization of industrial suburbs and regional clustering of economic competitors. Vanguard industries include those in advanced aerospace, electronics, and communications—all low-pollution high technology fields. This is supported by the movement of central offices and even corporate headquarters to suburbs. The new industrial suburbs are thus becoming professional, technical, and managerial havens of employment and residence.

These changes have resulted in a reversal of the trend in the late 1970s toward declining industrial suburbs and have led to further decentralization of industrial manufacturing both nationally and internationally. According to the 1986 Municipal Year Book, the 1980 census lists 267 industrial suburbs for which data are available and recorded. They are concentrated in the West (79 suburbs) and the North-Central (76 suburbs) portions of the United States. Historically, they were concentrated in the Northeast and North-Central regions.

The future suggests continuing evolution of the industrial suburbs. This includes greater numbers, greater product specialization, greater decentralization, and greater regional and international specialization. There will be improved quality of life in these communities coupled with better life chances and employment opportunities. These changes may well also lead to a change in the very definition of these communities. The term industrial or manufacturing suburbs may no longer be applicable in the foreseeable future.

Source : http://www.englisharticles.info/2011/05/16/industrial-suburbs/